H.A.  Johnston 


MoeeF  and  the  Pentateuch 


^ 


'may   5   1959 


OSES  AND  THE   PENTATEUCH. 


JOHNSTON. 


#?!!!!% 


*     JAN   6  1909     * 


MOSES 

AND  THE  PENTATEUCH, 


A     POPULAR    STATKMKXT    OF    THE    TIIROPJ 

OF   THE  SO-CALLED    HKJIIER   CRITK'ISM, 

TOGETHER   WITH   SOME   OF   THE 

REASON'S    FOR    NOT    AC- 

CEPTIN<;    THF^I 


%ev.  Howard  Agnew  Johnston,  Ph.D. 

Pastor  of  the  Fo>ty-/irst  Street  Presbyterian 
Church,  Chicago. 


CINCINNATI,  O.: 
Elm  Street  Printing  Co.,  Nos.  176  and   178   Elm  St. 


C"  O  N  TENT  S. 


Chapter.                                                                           Page. 
I.   Introductory 5 

II.  so.MK    Leading    Critics,    and   What   We 

Might  Expect  of  Them 11 

III.  The   Development   op  the   Theory    and 

the     Disagreement     of    the  Critics 
Among   Themselves 17 

IV.  The  Main  Argumemts  Presented  by  the 

Critics  Against  the  Mosaic  Author- 
ship, WITH  Answers  to  the  Same,   .    .    2G 

V.  Thk  Main   Arguments  in  Favor  of  the 

Mosaic  Authorship,      35 

VI.  Recent  Corroborative  Discoveries  from 

the  Monuments, 4:> 

VII.  The  Book  of  Genesis *.  52 

V^III.  The  Book  of  Exodus, 58 

IX.  The  Book  of  Leviticus 64 

X.  The  Book  of  Numbers, 70 

XI.  The  Book  of  Deuteronomy, 78 

XII.  The    Book    op    Joshua    and    the    Term 

"Hexateuch," 8G 

XIII.  A  Word  About  Alleged  Errors  and  Ex- 

isting Discrepancies, 93 

XIV.  Christ  and  the  Critics, lOO 

XV.  Concluding  Remarks Ill 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE. 

The  contents  of  this  vohime  appeared  in  a 
series  of  articles  in  the  Herald  and  Presbyter.  In 
answer  to  many  requests,  tliey  are  presented  to 
the  public  in  this  permanent  form,  with  appro- 
priate changes  in  the  introductory  chapter.  The 
original  form  will  explain  a  variety  of  features 
that  are  left  unchanged.  By  arrangement  the 
chapters  are  brief  a.n<^  concise,  rather  than  com- 
prehensive. 


I.-INTRODUCTORY. 

The  writer  of  this  little  book  ia  the  pastor 
of  a  large  congregation  of  busy  people.  Fre- 
quent inquiries  from  some  of  these  people 
have  been  made  concerning  the  theories  of 
the  higher  criticism.  The  fact  has  developed 
that  the  publications  which  present  the  sub- 
ject are  of  a  technical  character,  and  intended 
mainly  for  specialists.  And  so  it  has  seemed 
to  the  writer  that  many  Bible  students  who 
have  no  access  to  the  sources  of  special  in- 
formation would  be  glad  to  have  a  popular 
statement  of  the  theories  and  methods  of 
higher  criticism,  especially  if  they  should  be 
accompanied  by  the  reasons  which  lead  the 
great  majority  of  Christians  to  reject  the  con- 
clusions reached  and  the  methods  applied, 
8uch  a  statement  is  proposed  in  this  volume. 
A  glance  at  the  table  of  contents  will  reveal 
the  purpose  to  set  forth  the  historic  setting  of 
the  movement,  and  its  salient  features.     It  has 


Moses  mid  the  Peritaieuch. 


been  impossible  to  do  more  than  state  briefly, 
the  views  for  and  against  the  theory,  but  it  is 
hoped  that  this  brevity  will  not  be  at  the  ex- 
pense of  fairness  and  clearness. 

It  will  be  noted  that  according  to  the  scope 
of  the  plan  a  general  consideration  of  the  sub- 
ject will  be  followed  by  a  particular  exam- 
ination of  the  problems  that  arise  in  each 
book.  This  will  at  once  simplify  and  clarify 
the  work,  for  each  book  has  problems  peculiar 
to  itself,  especially  in  the  case  of  Genesis  and 
Deuteronomy.  Exodus  has  a  striking  unity, 
though  Leviticus  and  Numbers  are  closely 
bound  to  it.  At  the  start  we  shall  present  a 
few  biographical  items  which  will  make  it 
clear  why  some  of  the  most  famous  of  the 
critics  have  revealed  such  avidity  in  attempt- 
ing to  destroy  the  Christian's  confidence  in 
the  word  of  God.  We  may  not  impugn  the 
sincerity  of  the  evangelical  Christian  who  fol- 
lows in  the  wake  of  the  critics  who  are  avowed 
Unitarians  and  Agnostics;  but  as  we  note  the 
views  of  these  leaders  who  repudiate  miracle 
and  prophecy  and  inspiration  itself,  we  can 
not  but  feel  that  it  is  time  for  evangelical 
Christians  to  stand   out  against   them.     The 


Introdiictor)' 


best  way  to  do  this  is  not  to  dismiss  the  sub- 
ject by  calling  them  heretics;  but  to  present 
fairly  their  views  and  show  wherein  they  fail 
of  a  legitimate  claim  upon  the  adherence  of 
the  Christian. 

The  simple  fact  is  that  the  higher  criticism 
is  not  only  dangerous  and  destructive,  but  it  is 
also  unscientific.  Exact  science  makes  a  two- 
fold demand.  It  makes  necessary  the  cutting 
of  the  bridge  of  tradition.  No  less  imperative 
is  the  obligation  which  it  lays  upon  the  care- 
ful student  to  refuse  to  bridge  over  theories 
which  lack  demonstration,  however  fascinating 
and  popular.  True  science  suffers  in  both  of 
these  directions.  The  progressive  unfolding 
of  new  phases  of  the  truth  is  crippled  in  part 
because  some  people  cling  with  unreasonable 
and  unreasoning  prejudice  to  traditional  views 
which  clearly  ascertained  facts  have  proven 
untenable.  No  doubt,  one  reason  for  this  is 
the  rash,  unscientific  haste  with  which  the 
champions  of  new  theories  put  them  forth  as 
worthy  of  acceptance,  when  they  are  far  from 
demonstration.  If  the  student  desires  to  in- 
vestigate some  samples  of  colossal  conjecture 
and   astounding    assumption,    let   him   study 


Moses  and  the  Pentaicuch. 


some  of  the  theories  of  the  higher  criticism. 
Some  of  those  theories,  as,  for  instance,  the 
number  of  editings  which  the  Pentateuch  has 
undergone,  are  absolutely  without  a  shadow 
of  conclusive  evidence. 

We  are  told  the  world's  greatest  scholars 
are  advocates  and  supporters  of  the  higher 
criticism.  But  what  makes  a  great  scholar? 
Not  inventive  ingenuity  in  theorizing;  not 
keen  analytical  power  of  itself.  If  these  lack 
a  steadfast  level-headedness  and  fidelity  to 
facts,  a  prime  element  in  scholarship  is  miss- 
ing. It  is  true  that  the  race  has  witnessed 
more  than  one  mighty  intellect  burn  out  in 
dreaming  about  some  scheme  of  philosophy  or 
criticism  which  has  never  helped  us  one  inch 
toward  the  truth.  One  who  toils  through 
much  of  the  marvelously  painstaking  labors 
of  many  of  these  gifted  men  can  not  but  think 
of  Longfellow's  description  in  "Hyperion"  of 
much  of  the  German  philosophy.  He  said  it 
reminded  him  of  a  pleasant  street  in  one  of 
our  American  towns,  where  it,  at  first,  was 
wide  and  attractive,  lined  with  beautiful  trees; 
but  which  ran  out  into  the  country,  losing  its 
importance,   until  at  last  it  dwindled  into  a 


Introdiiciory. 


squirrel  track  and  ran  up  a  tree.  We  will 
prize  scholarship  by  what  it  gives  us  at  the 
last.  Just  as  capable  and  scholarly  men  re- 
pudiate the  essential  teachings  of  the  higher 
criticism  as  are  found  among  their  advocates. 
It  could  not  be  otherwise  with  their  theories 
assailable  at  every  point. 

It  is  time  tor  conservative  Christian  scholar- 
ship to  speak  with  less  apologetic  tone  in  de- 
fense of  the  substantial  Mosaic  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch.  The  higher  criticism  has  been 
given  a  hearing,  but  has  failed  signally  to  es- 
tablish the  destructive  views  which  it  has 
striven  to  propagate.  This  failure  is  becoming 
more  apparent  in  the  light  of  recent  monu- 
mental discoveries.  This  vast  field  of  modern 
science  has  been  ignored  by  the  critics  to  their 
hurt.  Our  plan  includes  some  account  of  these 
findings  and  their  testimony  against  the  funda- 
mental assumption  of  higher  criticism.  In 
the  course  of  this  presentation,  constant  ref- 
erence will  be  given  to  the  authorities  cited  on 
both  sides,  so  that  one  so  desiring  can  follow 
up  the  subject  to  ih^  extent  of  his  inclination. 
The  writer  is  of  those  who  desire  full  place 
for  the  truth,  no  matter  what  preconceived  no- 


lo  Moses  and  tJie  Pc7iiateiich. 

tion  may  be  set  aside;  but  who  refuse  to  set 
aside  accepted  views  until  fair  demonstration 
demands  it.  Let  us  "prove  all  things,"  and 
'hold  fast  that  which  is  good." 


II.— Some  Leading  Critics  and  Wliat  We 
Might  Expect  of  Them. 

Much  light  is  thrown  upon  the  significance 
of  the  higher  criticism  when  we  consider  the 
theological  views  jn  general  of  the  leading 
critics.  It  is  impossible  to  cut  between  a 
man's  general  attitude  toward  the  word  of 
God  and  his  critical  theories.  We  can  not 
fail  to  see  that  a  rationalist  who  rejects 
miracle,  prophecy  and  inspiration,  would 
bring  a  purely  naturalistic  theory  to  an  ex- 
amination of  the  Scriptures.  The  historic 
fact  is  that  the  conspicuous  leaders  among  the 
critics  have  been  rationalists,  and  a  delicate 
sensitiveness  to  the  truth  can  not  be  divested 
of  the  feeling  that  their  theories  are  the  prod- 
uct, not  so  much  of  an  honest  seeking  for  the 
truth,  as  of  a  desire  to  destroy  the  evangelical 
faith  by  the  constraint  involved  in  the  claim 
of  scientific  scholarship. 

In  proof  ol  this  we  have  the  following  state- 
ment concerning  Dr.  Abraham  Kuenen  in  the 
(11  ) 


Moses  and  tlie  Pentateuch. 


Jewish  Quarterly  Review:  "It  was  an  at- 
tempt of  singular  boldness  and  vigor  to  shake 
the  tradition  of  Christian  piety  free  from 
every  trace  of  supernaturalism  and  implied 
exclusiveness.  It  involved  the  absolute  sur 
render  of  the  orthodox  dogmatics,  of  the 
authority  of  the  Scriptures,  of  the  divine 
character  of  the  Church  as  an  external  insti- 
tution, and,  of  course,  it  based  the  claims  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  our  affection  and  grati- 
tude solely  upon  what  history  could  show  that 
he,  as  a  man,  had  been  and  had  done  for 
men."— T^^cA;s^eac2,  Jewish  Quarterly  Review, 
July,  1892.  And  this  is  exactly  what  we 
would  expect  of  a  Jewish  scholar.  We  may 
not  question  his  convictions  as  sincere,  as  we 
may  not  question  the  honesty  of  any  Unitarian's 
convictions.  But  no  more  can  the  evangelical 
Christian  expect  to  find  a  common  ground 
with  such  men  ,for  reverent  criticism  of  the 
word  of  God. 

A  list  of  higher  critics  is  given  us  by  Dr. 
Charles  A.  Briggs  in  an  appendix  to  his  book 
on  "The  Bible,  the  Church  and  the  Reason." 
This  list  contains  147  names;  seventeen  of 
this  number  are  Jews  and  five  are  Unitarians. 


Some  Leadiih:^  Criiics.  13 

Thirty,  at  least,  of  the  whole  number  do  not 
believe  in  the  supernatural  in  the  Bible  at 
all,  while  many  more  hold  decidedly  loose 
ideas  of  inspiration.  Canon  Driver  defines  in- 
spiration as  "spiritual  insight,"  and  nothing 
more.  Now,  it  is  true  that  these  rationalibt 
and  rationalistic  men  are  the  leaders  of  the 
higher  criticism.  It  is  equally  true  that  of 
the  hundred  or  more  followers  of  these  lead- 
ers, those  who  have  gone  to  any  length  in 
adopting  the  critical  views  have  betrayed  in 
their  writings  clear  tendencies  to  rationalism. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  students  of  these  critics 
betray  a  tendency  toward  naturalistic  grounds 
in  their  opinions  touching  related  lines  of 
thought.  More  than  once  the  writer  has 
verified  this  fact  in  conversation  with  men 
from  the  class-room  of  German  and  American 
teachers. 

When,  therefore,  the  critics  parade  the 
names  of  Tuch,  Knobel,  De  Wette,  Bohlen, 
Bleek,  Ewald,  Delitzsch,  Graf,  Kuenen,  Well- 
hausen,  Dillman  and  others,  we  can  not  con- 
sent to  be  carried  away  by  such  a  flourish  of 
trumpets,  for  the  work  which  we  have  in  hand 
is  not  a  matter  to  be  determined  for  evangel- 


14  Moses  atid  tJie  Penfaieuch. 

ical  Christendom  by  any  number  of  brilliant 
intellects.  Dr.  Brio;g9  mentions  Ernest  Renan 
in  his  list  of  critics.  Had  he  not  restricted 
his  list,  he  might  also  have  mentioned 
Francois  Voltaire,  as  he  also  advocated  the 
very  same  views  concerning;  the  Mosaic 
authorship  of  the  Pentateuch.  When  we 
think  of  the  subtle  infidelity  of  Renan,  in  his 
inefi'ective  endeavor  to  stab  to  the  heart  the 
evangelical  faith,  we  are  startled  indeed  to 
have  Dr.  Briggs  tell  us  that  evangelical 
scholarship  must  yield  to  a  class  of  men  with 
whom  Ernest  Renan  is  in  accord  in  the  cardi- 
nal points  of  their  destructive  criticism.  Is  it 
not  time  to  call  a  halt  along  this  line? 

Of  course,  it  is  not  asserted  that  because  a 
man  is  an  infidel  or  a  rationalist,  he  may  not 
be  an  honest  student  of  history  or  of  liter- 
ature, from  his  standpoint.  But  the  difficulty 
is  with  his  standpoint.  It  is  nothing  less 
than  absurd  to  expect  a  man  who  denies  the 
possibility  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  who  denies  the 
possibility  of  an  inspiration  by  which  men 
were  led  to  predict  future  events,  to  enter 
upon  a  study  of  the   Old  Testament  history 


So"ie  Leading  Critics.  i  5 

and  literature  without  being  destructive  of  the 
very  found ationri  oi"  faith  in  the  Bible  as  the 
word  of  God.  But  just  such  men  are  the 
leaders  of  this  critical  development.  It  need 
not  be  argued  here  that  evangelical  Christians 
can  not  expect  light  from  such  sources,  nor 
need  it  be  argued  that  we  must  guard  the 
more  earnestly  against  the  subtle  encroach- 
ments which  the  enemies  of  what  we  believe 
to  be  the  saving  truth  of  God  would  fain 
make  upon  our  faith. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  critics  have  a 
following  among  evangelical  scholars.  But 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  those  who  are  at  all  en- 
thusiastic in  their  adherence  to  the  critical 
methods  clearly  betray  naturalistic  tenden- 
cies in  their  writings.  Over  against  these  are 
to  be  mentioned  some  of  the  strongest  men  in 
the  realm  of  modern  scholarship.  Among 
them  are  Hengstenberg,  Haeverinck,  Keil, 
Sayce,  Green,  DeWitt,  Osgood,  Bissell  and 
W.  J.  Beecher.  These  men  stand  for  the 
divine  character  of  the  Bible  as  against  the 
theory  of  its  human  production.  They  stand 
for  the  substantial  Mosaic  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch.       They    are    scholars   of   equal 


1 6  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

ability  in  discerning  a  fair  demonstration 
of  any  theory  touching  the  Old  Testament 
writings  with  any  of  the  critics.  They  are 
open  to  the  truth,  ready  to  be  convinced  by 
any  reasonable  demonstration;  but  entirely 
unwilling  to  shut  their  eyes  to  the  insuperable 
barriers  that  thus  far  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
unscientific  processes  of  the  critics.  It  is 
further  true  that  there  are  some  men  counted 
as  critics  who,  to  say  the  least,  are  half-hearted 
supporters  of  the  analysis.  Prof.  W.  R. 
Harper  is  continually  confessing  difficulties 
that  arise  upon  which  the  critics  can  throw 
no  light. 

In  view  of  these  facts  it  will  not  be  sur 
prising  to  find  the  theories  of  the  critics, 
which  we  shall  now  proceed  to  consider,  of 
such  character  as  they  are.  Nor  will  we  be 
surprised  that  so  many  reject  these  theories, 
as  we  note  the  reason  for  not  accepting  them. 
Evangelical  scholars  meet  the  critics  at  every 
point,  showing  the  weakness  and  insufficiency 
of  their  views. 


III.— The  Development  of  the  Theory  and 

the  Disagreement  of  the  Critics 

.  Among  Themselves. 

Prior  to  the  last  century,  the  substantial 
Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  was  con- 
ceded  by  almost  the  unanimous  voice  of  He- 
brew and  Christian  scholarship.  The  excep- 
tions were  inconspicuous,  and  occurred  main- 
ly in  the  second  century.  Epiphanius  tells  us 
an  obscure  party  of  Nazarenes  considered  the 
present  Pentateuch  as  spurious  The  Gnostic 
Ptolemaeus  ascribed  only  a  portion  of  the 
work  to  Moses.  The  Clementine  Homilies 
suggest  that  because  the  account  of  the  death 
ot  Moses  occurs  at  the  end  of  the  work,  Moses 
did  not  write  any  of  it.  Attempts  have  been 
made  by  the  critics  to  show  that  Jerome  in  the 
fourth  century,  and  Aben  Ezra  in  the  twelfth 
century,  discredited  the  Mosaic  authorship. 
But  this  can  not  fairly  be  done.  Jerome  sim- 
ply says  he  does  not  object  to  the  idea  of  a 
post-exilian    revision,   and  Aben    Ezra   does 

(17) 


Mosfs  and  the  Pentateuch. 


nothing  more  than  intimate  that  subsequent 
interpolations  had  crept  into  the  original  text. 

In  the  year  1651,  the  English  deist,  Thomas 
Hobbes,  published  his  "Leviathan,"  in  which 
he  assailed  the  Mosaic  authorship.  The  idea 
waa  taken  up  by  the  deistic  philosophers  of 
the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
notably  Shaftesbury  and  Bolingbroke,  both  of 
whom  were  practical  atheists,  while  the  latter's 
immorality  is  known  to  history.  About  the 
same  time,  Spinoza  in  Holland,  and  Richard 
Simon  in  France,  advocated  the  same  view 
with  variations.  Both  of  these  men  were 
Jews  of  a  most  pronounced  rationalistic  type 
of  thought.  Spinoza's  philosophy  was  de- 
nounced in  his  day  as  systematic  atheism. 
David  Hume,  the  English  skeptic,  was  his  ad- 
miring pupil.  Spinoza  abhorred  the  traditional 
theology,  and  did  all  in  his  power  to  rational- 
ize the  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  names  of  Vitringa  and  Laclerc  should 
also  be  mentioned,  as  they  gave  some  impetus 
to  the  theory  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth. 

In  the  early  half  of  the  last  century,  Dr. 
Herman    Samuel    Reimarus,     of    Hamburg, 


The  Development  of  the  Theory.        19 

elaborated  the  theory  at  8)me  length.  Profes- 
sor Pdeiderer,  of  Berlin,  says  of  him:  "Reim- 
aru8,  the  author  of  the  'Wolfenbuttel  Frag- 
ments,' by  the  publication  of  which  Lessing 
threw  German  theology  into  a  ferment,  occu- 
pies the  same  position  as  the  English  deists, 
and  indeed  owed  much  to  their  influence." 
At  the  same  time  the  man  who  was  dominat- 
ing the  popular  thought  of  France  was  Vol- 
taire. The  extent  of  his  influence  upon  all 
classes  is  simply  amazing  to  us  of  to-day. 
Spinoza  and  the  English  deists  were  his  de- 
light. Of  the  latter  he  said:  "Many  of  these 
have  advanced  so  far  as  to  doubt  whether 
Moses  ever  existed."  Such  are  the  actual  hot- 
beds of  rationalism  in  which  the  seeds  of  mod- 
ern higher  criticism  had  root.  Professor  Os- 
good clearly  puts  the  attitude  of  these  men  to- 
ward the  Bible,  as  denying  that  it  was  in  any 
sense  from  God  or  a  revelation  of  religion; 
that  it  was  anything  else  than  a  "growth  and 
compilation,  in  accordance  with  the  ordinary 
lawti,  and  subject  to  the  ordinary  errors  of  the 
human  mind."  If  we  should  be  accused  of 
unfair  prejudice  in  these  statements,  we  need 
but  to   refer  to   the   following  extract   from 


20  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

Kuenen,  in  his  work  on  the  Prophets:  "So 
long  as  we  derive  a  separate  part  of  Israel's 
religious  life  directly  from  God,  and  allow  the 
supernatural  or  immediate  revelation  to  inter- 
vene in  even  one  single  point,  so  long  also  our 
view  of  the  whole  continues  to  be  incorrect. 
It  is  the  supposition  of  a  natural  development 
alone  which  accounts  for  all  the  phenomena." 
Could  the  fruit  be  any  more  like  the  seed?  It 
simply  means  that  radical  higher  criticism 
would  destroy  utterly  the  divine  character  of 
the  Bible. 

In  the  year  1753,  Dr.  Jean  Astruc,  an  emi- 
nent Belgian  physician,  published  a  book  at 
Brussels,  entitled  "Conjectures  About  the 
Original  Memoirs  which  Moses  Used  m  Com- 
posing the  Book  of  Genesis."  In  this  treatise 
Astruc  suggested  that  Mosee  compiled  the 
Book  of  Genesis  largely  from  pre-existing  ma- 
terials This  he  thought  apparent,  because  of 
the  way  the  two  names  for  God — Elohim  and 
Jehovah — were  used.  Most  Bible  students 
not  familiar  with  the  Hebrew  are  aware  that 
there  are  diflPerent  names  of  God  used  in  the 
text,  two  ot  them  much  more  than  the  rest. 
They  are  El,  or  Elohim,  translated  God  in  the 


The  Development  of  the  Theory.        21 

English,  and  Javeh,  vocalized  in  our  text  into 
Jehovah.  There  are  sections  in  Genesis  where 
now  one,  now  another,  of  these  terms  is  used, 
and  to  such  an  extent  as  to  suggest  that  the 
sections  were  written  by  different  men,  one  of 
whom  at  least  was  familiar  with  but  one  of 
these  words.  Astruc  conjectured  that  Moses 
had  used  twelve  pre-existing  documents,  two 
principal  ones  and  ten  others.  Professor  Eich- 
horn  pruned  off  some  of  Astruc's  conjectures 
and  confined  his  theory  to  the  advocacy  of  two 
documents.  Some  of  his  contemporaries,  as 
Illgen  and  Gramberg,  advocated  three  docu- 
ments 

But  this  documentary  hypothesis  was  quite 
too  conservative  for  some  of  the  critics.  In 
1815  Dr.  Johann  Severin  Vater  gave  out  the 
more  startling  theory  that  the  Pentateuch  con- 
sisted merely  of  a  number  of  fragments  strung 
together  without  order  or  design.  He  sup- 
posed a  collection  of  laws  made  at  the  time  of 
David  and  Solomon  to  have  been  the  foundation 
of  the  whole;  that  this  was  the  lost  book  found 
in  the  days  of  Josiah,  its  fragments  being  in- 
corporated into  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy. 
The  rest  of  the   Pentateuch  consists  of  frag- 


22  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 


ments  of  tradition,  history  and  law  collected 
into  form  between  the  reign  of  Josiah  and  the 
Babylonian  exile.  Dr.  A.  T.  Hartmann  was 
in  accord  with  Vater's  theory.  But  this  fra^ 
ment-hypothesis  has  been  almost  universally 
abandoned  by  later  critics.  Even  DeWette, 
who  held  to  it  for  a  time,  has  relinquished  it 
for  the  earlier  documentary  hypothesis  to 
which  modern  critics  have  returned.  Most  of 
these  assert  that  there  are  evidences  of  at  least 
four  original  documents      These  are  said  to  be 

(1)  an  earlier  Elohistic  document,  known  as 
the  priest  code,  and  indicated  by  the  letter  P; 

(2)  the  Jehovistic  document,  indicated  by  the 
letter  J;  (3)  a  later  Elohistic  document,  indi- 
cated by  the  letter  E.  Theories  vary  about 
the  fourth  element;  some  claim  to  detect  an 
earlier  writer  in  J,  known  as  J^.  Besides, 
credit  is  given  to  editors,  redactors  and  glosses. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  enter  upon  a 
more  detailed  statement  of  the  general  argu- 
ment for  these  theories,  and  afterwards  we 
shall  consider  more  specifically  each  separate 
book  in  turn  The  very  important  discrimina- 
tion to  be  made  here  touches  the  fact  that  the 
Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch,  while  it 


The  Dcvelopmefit  of  the  Theory.        23 


makes  impossible  the  assumed  later  compi- 
lation, does  not  make  impossible  the  use  of 
pre-existing  materials  by  Moses  himself,  nor 
an  arrangement  of  the  whole  in  its  present 
form  at  a  later  date.  The  critics  would  blot 
out  Moses,  but  give  us  no  one  in  his  place. 
They  announce  that  the  various  authors  are 
unknown.  The  fact  is,  thes^  authors  come  out 
of  the  theory.  The  book  is  divided  up  into 
sections,  and  the  theory  demands  authors  for 
the  same,  and  lo!  P.  and  J.  and  E.  spring 
Minerva-like  from  the  Jovian  brain  of  the 
critics.  But  no  such  artificial  dissection  will 
win  final  recognition,  simply  because  the 
character  of  Moses  can  not  be  efiaced  from 
the  Pentateuch.  It  breathes  that  potent  spirit 
of  living  contemporaneous  history  which  de- 
fies the  ex  post  facto  explanation  of  the  critics. 
Not  only  so,  but  the  theory  is  met  by  stubborn 
facts  at  almost  every  point,  as  will  appear  in 
our  further  treatment  of  the  case. 

The  critics  have  largely  vitiated  their  own 
attempts  to  make  a  case  by  their  disagree- 
ments among  themselves.  Not  only  is  the 
analysis  in  general  marked  by  frequently  re- 
curring inconsistencies,  but  the  diflferent  views 


24  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

and  sharp  contentions  of  the  critics  lead  many 
to  ask,  -with  Dr.  Green,  which  one  we  may  ac- 
cept as  authority.  In  the  account  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  theory  this  fact  of  diflFerence 
in  view  has  appeared.  But  as  the  detailed 
study  of  the  text  is  taken  up,  the  reader  is  be- 
wildered by  finding  one  critic  positively  assign- 
ing a  given  passage  to  P.,  while  another  as 
positively  assigns  it  to  J.  Kuenen  actually  as- 
serts that  there  have  been  fifteen  redactors, 
editing  and  re-editing  the  work.  All  this,  we 
are  told,  is  the  result  of  the  most  exact  scien- 
tific processes.  Then,  behold!  Wellhausen 
comes  after  Kuenen  with  nineteen  redactors, 
and  departs  from  Kuenen  because  his  position 
was  'poly  theism  and  monotheismtogether."  We 
have  charged  the  higher  criticism  with  being 
unscientific.  Certainly  no  demonstrable  science 
would  ever  plunge  the  student  into  such  a 
labyrinth  of  hopeless  contradictions  and  fanci- 
ful conjectures.  Every  one  desiring  to  see  the 
most  valuable  presentation  of  the  theory  in  all 
its  startling  and  almost  incredible  character 
should  by  all  means  examine  the  work  of  Prof. 
E,  C.  Bissell  entitled  "Genesis  Printed  in  Col- 
ors."    By  selecting  a  special  color  to  repre- 


The  Development  of  the  Theory.       25 


sent  each  assumed  document,  and  various  col- 
ors to  indicate  glosses  and  the  work  of  re.- 
dactors,  Dr.  Bissell  presents  to  the  mind 
through  the  eye  the  result  of  the  analysis  as 
adopted  by  Kautzch  and  Socin.  An  exceed- 
ingly valuable  introduction  precedes  the  work. 
If  a  copy  of  this  book  could  be  placed  in  the 
hands  of  every  unprejudiced  Bible  student, 
the  hopeless  doom  of  higher  criticism  would 
be  settled  within  sisty  days. 


IV.— The  Main  Arguments  Presented  by  the 

Critics  against  the  Mosaic  Authorship, 

with  Answers  to  the  Same. 

Before  entering  upon  the  statement  of  these 
arguments,  the  fact  should  be  emphasized  that 
the  claim  for  the  Mosaic  authorship  does  not 
preclude  the  use  by  Moses  of  pre  existent  ma- 
terials. Probably  no  one  would  question  the 
probability  of  such  use.  The  institutions  of 
the  Sabbath  and  circumcision  existed  before 
the  time  of  Moses.  The  events  chronicled  in 
the  Book  of  Crenesis  antedate  the  time  of 
Moses  We  shall  see  later  on  that  the  monu- 
ments furnish  conclusive  evidence  of  the  exist 
ence  of  such  materials  as  would  be  available- 
in  part  for  the  work  which  Moses  was  com- 
manded to  accomplish.  Some  of  the  critics 
concede  parts  of  the  Pentateuch  to  the  hand 
of  Moses,  especially  the  laws  in  Deuteronomy. 
But  the  critics  deny  that  the  substantial  con- 
tents of  the  Pentateuch  are  to  be  credited  to 
him.  Dr.  Briggs  reiterated  in  his  defense  the 
(26) 


The  Main  Arguvients.  27 

following  statement  from  his  inaugural:  "It 
may  be  regarded  as  the  certain  result  of  the 
8cienc3e  of  the  higher  criticism  that  Moses  did 
notwrite  the  Pentateuch.  .  .  .  The  great  mass 
of  the  Old  Testament  was  written  by  authors 
whose  names  or  connection  with  iheir  writ- 
ings are  lost  in  oblivion."  Tn  proof  of  this 
the  critics  rest  mainly  upon  the  following  ar- 
guments: 

1.  It  is  asserted  that  the  structure  of  the 
narrative  betrays  a  composite  character.  The 
earlier  theories  suggested  this  concerning 
Genesis  alone,  as  in  the  "conjectures"  of 
Aetruc,  but  now  it  is  urged  that  the  Elohistic 
and  Jehovistic  writings  can  be  traced  through 
the  whole  book.  To  prove  this  point  it  is 
urged  (1)  that  there  are  irreconcilably^  differ- 
ences in  the  two  parts  of  the  narrative  which 
describe  the  same  event.  An  instance  is  the 
twofold  account  of  the  creation  in  Gen.  i.  2,  3, 
and  ii  4-25  Others  are  the  accounts  of  the 
flood,  the  story  of  the  exodus,  the  number  of 
the  feasts,  the  sending  of  the  quails  and  the 
murmuring  for  water.  (2)  The  fact  is  also 
urged  in  proof  of  composite  authorship  that 
the  same  account  is  repeated,  as  in  the  com- 


2$  iVIoses  and  the  Pentaicuch. 

mand  for  the  national  festivals  (Exod.  xvii. 
1-7,  and  xxxiv.  23-26),  as  also  in  the  penal 
statutes  for  the  violations  of  the  marriage 
laws  (Lev.  xviii.  xx).  '3)  It  is  claimed  fur- 
ther that  the  Elohist  has  a  range  of  simpler 
ideas  than  the  Jehovist,  who  is  more  elaborate 
in  vocabulary  and  style.  (4)  Moreover,  it  is 
claimed  that  these  writers  have  certain  favor- 
ite expressions  and  pet  phrases  which  distin- 
guish them  For  instance,  they  tell  us  the 
Elohist  will  say  to  give  or  estahlish  a  cove- 
nant, while  the  Jehovist  will  say  to  cut  a 
covenant  The  Jehovist  also  has  credited  to 
him  grammatical  peculiarities,  as  the  use  of 
the  infinitive  absolute  for  the  sake  of  empha- 
sis. (5)  The  claim  is  also  made  that  Exod, 
vi.  2  indicates  that  the  name  Jehovah  was  not 
revealed  until  the  time  of  Moses.  How  this 
could  be  urged  against  the  Mosaic  authorship 
does  not  appear. 

In  answer  to  the  above  assertions,  it  may 
be  said  (1)  that  the  unity,  of  the  Pentateuch 
as  a  whole  is  too  palpable  to  be  denied,  but 
the  critics  say  this  is  not  because  its  present 
form  came  mainly  from  one  author,  but  be 
cause  some  later  writer  worked  up  the  vari- 


The  Main  Ari^^wncnts.  29 

0U9  parts  into  this  unity.  The  fact  is,  how- 
ever, that  only  the  most  arbitrary  suppositions 
and  inexplicable  gaps  make  it  possible  to  call 
the  narrative  a  reconstruction  of  fragments. 
This  fact  vrill  be  more  fully  elaborated  in  con- 
sidering the  Book  of  Genesis  in  chapter  vii. 
Moreover,  the  critics  are  in  hopeless  disagree- 
ment as  to  what  exactly  constitutes  each  orig- 
inal part.  As  to  the  time  of  the  literary 
genius  who  gave  us  the  present  form,  Stahelin 
fixes  it  at  the  time  of  !;^aul;  DeWette,  Knobel 
and  Bleek  at  the  time  of  Josiah;  Kuenen  at 
the  end  of  the  seventh  century  B.  C. ;  Ewald 
before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem;  Hart- 
mann,  Bohlen  and  Wellhausen  after  the  exile. 
They  each  tell  us  they  reach  these  conclusions 
by  strictly  scientific  processes.  (2)  As  to  the 
alleged  contradictions,  without  exception  they 
may  be  easily  explained  by  the  exercise  of 
ordinary  common  sense.  As  a  rule  the  items 
are  clearly  supplementary,  and  not  contradic- 
tory. (3)  The  repetitions  mentioned  have  dis- 
tinct features.  Lev.  xviii.  commands  family 
purity.  Chapter  xx.  contains  some  of  the 
same  commands  under  an  elaboration  of  the 
Decalogue.     In  any  case,  to  assert  a  funda- 


Moses  and  the  PentaicucJi. 


mental  composite  authorship  because  of  these 
infrequent  repetitions  is  quite  without  war- 
rant. (4)  As  to  the  linguistic  peculiarities, 
Keil  says  in  the  first  volume  of  his  introduc- 
tion: "We  everywhere  discover  a  difference  in 
the  conception  which  is  demanded  by  the 
sense  and  context  of  the  individual  passages, 
or  else  the  peculiar  words  ascribed  to  the  one 
auihor  are  really  not  unknown  to  the  other, 
or  they  occur  in  a  few  solitary  places,  and 
therefore  are  not  entitled  te  be  considered 
characteristic."  (5)  The  notion  that  the  name 
Jehovah  was  not  known  before  Moses  sug- 
gests a  failure  to  have  noted  it  in  utterances 
of  the  patriarchs,  as  in  Gen.  iv.  1,  v.  29;  ix. 
26;  xiv.  22;  xx.  4,  etc. 

2.  It  is  asserted  that  the  contents  of  the 
books  are  unhistorical  in  character.  (1)  A 
few  years  ago  it  was  argued  quite  confidently 
that  the  Egyptology  of  the  Pentateuch  was  so 
full  of  errors  as  to  have  made  it  impossible 
for  Motes  to  have  written  it.  Bohlen  espe- 
cially urged  this  view.  It  may  be  briefly 
stated  that  a  dead  and  buried  Egypt,  of  which 
Herodotus  never  knew,  has  uncovered  her 
sepulchres  and  risen  up  to  refute  every  single 


The  Main  Argiiinents.  31 

charg;e  of  the  critics.  We  have  the  testimony 
of  Rawlinson,  in  his  Historical  Illustrations  of 
the  Old  Testament,  "that  in  the  entire  Mosaic 
description  of  ancient  Egypt  there  is  not  a 
single  feature  which  is  out  of  harmony  with 
what  we  know  of  the  Egypt  of  this  remote 
period  from  other  sources."^  (2)  A  second 
specification  under  this  charge  asserts  the  in- 
accurate character  of  much  of  the  geograph- 
ical, chronological  and  arithmetical  state- 
ments. It  is  true  that  in  the  realm  of  fig- 
ures, both  in  dates  and  numbers,  it  is  difficult 
to  find  exact  harmony.  This  fact,  however, 
does  not  make  against  any  particular  author. 
Keasonable  explanations  are  given  for  almost 
every  point.  As  to  the  geography,  the  re- 
markable fact  stands  that  the  list  of  camping- 
places  given  in  Num.  xxxiii.,  and  said  to  con- 
tain errors,  is  conceded  by  the  critics  to  be 
one  of  the  indubitable  Mosaic  fragments.  (3) 
One  other  charge  is  made  against  the  historic 
reliability  of  the  book,  which  does  not  stop 
at  the  point  of  authorship.  Kuenen  says  the 
record  of  miracles  and  certain  other  incidents 
are  simply  mythological  legends.  This,  of 
course,  denies  divine  inspiration,  and  we  need 


^2  .Moses  and  the  Penia tenth. 

not  here  do  more  than  state  it  to  the  evan- 
gelical reader. 

3.  The  critics  tell  us  that  the  literature  of 
a  people  must  have  a  natural  development; 
that  the  Hebrews,  at  the  exodus,  were  a  race 
of  slaves,  and  that  the  Pentateuch  could  not 
have  been  the  production  of  that  age.  This 
theory  is  in  accord  with  the  naturalistic  atti- 
tude which  they  bring  to  the  study  of  the 
book.  The  very  facts  mentioned  point  to 
Moses  as  the  only  possible  author  of  the  book, 
for  he  was  a  prince  in  the  palace  and  learned 
in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians.  More 
important,  however,  is  the  testimony  of  the 
monuments  in  proof  of  the  literary  activity 
among  the  Semitic  peoples  previous  to  the 
time  of  Moses.  The  critics  assume  a  literary 
renaissance  of  the  restoration,  yet  Gesenius 
declares  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Esther  and  Chron- 
icles to  be  inferior  literary  work.  The  theory 
here  simply  goes  down  before  facts. 

4.  It  is  urged  that  the  resemblance  of  the 
language  of  the  Pentateuch  to  that  of  later 
books  argues  for  its  later  authorship.  Espe- 
cially is  this  resemblance  urged  between 
Deuteronomy  and  Jeremiah.     In  our  chapter 


The  Main  AfgiDnenis.  33 


on  Deuteronomy  we  shall  considei*  thn  re- 
semblance. In  fi^eneral  it  may  be  said  that 
JeTemiah  shows  great  familiarity  with  the 
other  books  of  the  Pentateuch,  as  well  as  with 
Deuteronomy.  Further,  it  may  be  said  that 
whatever  resemblance  may  be  noticed  is  off- 
set by  a  decided  diversity,  not  only  in  con- 
tents, but  in  literary  style.  It  may  be  said 
just  here  that  a  little  patient  study  of  the  text 
reveals  such  a  constant  reference  to  the  Pen- 
tateuch in  almost  every  succeeding  book  of 
the  Old  Testament  as  to  prove  its  earlier  ex- 
istence according  to  the  generally  accepted 
rules  of  scientific  literary  criticism. 

5.  The  critics  assert  there  are  traces  of  a 
later  date,  indicating  the  age  in  which  the 
author  lived.  (1)  Passages  which  seem  to 
prei-uppose  the  occupation  of  the  land,  as  Gen. 
xxxvi  31.  This  statement  is  said  to  indicate 
the  :ime  of  the  monarchy,  but  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  in  Gen.  xxxv.  11,  kings  are 
promised  to  Israel,  and  this  is  but  a  statement 
of  developments  previous  to  that  anticipated 
time.  (2)  Passages  which  seem  to  imply  the 
Palestinian  standpoint  of  the  author,  as  Gen. 
xii,  8.      (3)  Passages  which  explain  archaic 


34  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

usages  and  terms  by  those  of  a  later  origin, 
as  Gen.  xiv.  2,  "Bela,  which  is  Zoar."  It  need 
only  be  said  that  the  later  names  were  known 
in  the  time  of  Moses.  (4)  Citations  from 
documents  of  recognized  antiquity,  as  Num. 
xxi.  14,  where  reference  is  made  to  the  Book 
of  the  Wars  of  Jehovah.  But  it  is  simply  an 
assumption  to  say  this  book  was  of  recognized 
antiquity  Nothing  prevents  its  having  been 
contemporaneous,  so  far  as  the  record  is  con- 
cerned. (5)  Passages  which  contain  the 
formula  "unto  this  day,"  as  Gen.  xix.  37. 
None  of  the  instances  require  an  explanation 
beyond  the  fact  that  the  phrase  partakes  of 
the  nature  of  a  proverbial  expression  designed 
to  represent  an  event  or  transaction  as  of 
permanent  character.  In  short,  no  theory  of 
the  critics  against  the  substantial  Mosaic  au 
thorship  has  any  ground  for  a  fair  demonstra- 
tion. All  of  them  are  open  to  strong  legit- 
imate objection  and  some  of  them  are  met 
with  clear  refutation. 


V. — The  Main  Arguments  in  Favor  of  the 
Mosaic  Authorship. 

The  reader  of  these  articles  will  realize 
that  we  are  attempting  to  make  a  reasonably 
adequate  statement  of  views  in  defense  of 
which  volumes  have  been  written.  Brevity 
here  is  at  the  risk  of  obscurity,  but  it  is  hoped 
that  any  one  especially  interested  will  enter 
upon  a  more  extended  investigation  of  the 
subject.  We  can  but  indicate  the  salient 
points  on  either  side  of  the  controversy.  Un- 
der the  topic  for  this  chapter  there  are  sev- 
eral lin68  of  argument. 

1.  On  its  face  the  Pentateuch  carries  a 
clear  presumption  in  favor  of  the  Mosaic  au-' 
thorship.  There  is  the  direct  testimony  of 
the  Book  to  this  effect  in  Ex.  xvii.  14  and  xxiv. 
3-7;  Xum.  xxxiii.  1,  2;  Deut.  xvii.  18,  19,  a 
remarkable  passage ;  mention  of  written  bless- 
ings and  curses  in  Deut.  xxviii.  and  xxx , 
xxvii.  1-13.  and  most  notable  of  all,  Deut. 
xxxi.  9-13;  xxiv.  27.  Add  to  this  the  warning 
(35) 


36  Moses  and  the  Pc7iiateuch. 


against  adding  to  or  taking  from  what  Moses 
commanded,  Deut.  iv.  2;  xii.  32  Note  also 
Num.  xxxvi.  13  and  Lev.  xxv.  1;  xxvi  46; 
xxvii.  34.  Almost  on  entering  the  wilderness 
the  Hebrew  lawgiver  received  a  divine  order 
to  write  in  the  Book.  On  reaching  Sinai  he 
is  discovered  again  writing  in  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant.  As  the  wanderings  in  the 
wilderness  were  nearing  their  termination,  he 
is  stated  to  have  prepared  a  written  record  of 
the  halting-places  in  the  march.  And  just 
before  he  dies  he  is  once  more  writing  "this 
book  of  the  law."  If  ever  there  was  d,  prima- 
facie  inference,  it  is  here  to  the  eflFect  that 
Moses  was  the  substantial  author  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch. 

2.  It  was  possible  for  Moses  to  have  written 
it.  A  few  years  ago  some  of  the  critics  urged 
that  there  were  no  Semitic  writers  prior  to 
1,000  B.C.  Of  course,  all  that  is  now  given 
up — for  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter  that 
the  monuments  have  proved  not  only  the 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing  in  the  time 
of  Moses,  but  the  existence  of  records  at  the 
time  of  Abraham,  giving  accounts  of  primitive 
history,  which    seem   to  have   been    handed 


The  Main  Arguments.  37 

down  from  the  earliest  times.  As  to  the  ma- 
teiial  found  in  Exodus  and  Deuteronomy  in- 
clusive, it  must  have  been  available  for  Moses 
as  for  no  one  else.  It  is  further  true  that  the 
Mosaic  authorship  will  account  for  the  accu- 
rate and  minute  details  which  everywhere  ap- 
pear in  a  knowledge  of  Egypt  and  the  desert 
life. 

3.  The  Mosaic  authorship  is  necessary  to 
an  adequate  explanation  of  the  historic  de- 
velopment of  the  national  life  of  the  Hebrews. 
Suddenly  these  people  took  their  place  among 
the  settled  nations  and  entered  upon  that 
conspicuous  and  unique  racial  development 
which  has  continued  even  to  this  day.  While 
there  were  acknowledged  affinities  in  some 
points  with  contiguous  nations,  it  must  be  ad 
mitted  that  their  whole  system  was  sharply 
separated  by  the  grandeur  of  its  religious 
monotheism,  and  by  its  complex  social  and 
civil  organization,  from  that  of  all  other  na- 
tions. Their  code  of  laws  was  so  penetrating 
as  to  impress  its  indelible  peculiarities  upon 
the  race,  and  to  endow  it  with  a  potency  and 
perpetuity  of  national  life,  in  the  face  of  ter- 
rific counter  influences,  to  which  history  fur- 


38  Moses  a7id  the  Pentateuch. 

nishes  no  parallel.  Such  an  effect  demands  a 
cause;  and  that  cause  is  the  living  system 
known  as  Mosaism.  As  the  New  Testament 
Church  is  inconceivable  without  the  incarna- 
tion of  Christ  and  the  apostolic  Gospels,  so 
the  Old  Testament  Church  is  inconceivable 
without  a  Sinaitic  revelation  and  a  Mosaic 
Pentateuch. 

4.  It  is  simply  incredible  that  some  "great 
Unknown"  should  have  foisted  upon  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel  at  any  date  later  than  Moses 
this  book  which  was  credited  to  him  by  the 
people.  Dr.  Bleek  admits  that  in  the  time 
of  Christ  it  was  the  universal  belief  that 
Moses  was  the  author  of  the  entire  Penta- 
teuch. Josephus  says:  "All  our  constitution 
depends  on  Moses  our  legislator.  For  we 
have  not  an  innumerable  multitude  of  books, 
disagreeing  from  and  contradicting  one  an- 
other (as  the  Greeks  have),  but  only  twenty- 
two  books,  which  contain  the  records  of  all 
past  times,  which  are  justly  claimed  to  be  di 
vine,  and  of  them  five  belong  to  Moses,  which 
contain  his  laws  and  the  tradition  of  the  origin 
of  mankind  until  his  death."  Philo  says: 
"We  find  that  in  the  sacred  oracles  delivered 


The  Main  Arguments.  39 

by  the  prophet  Moses,  there  are  three  kinds 
of  characters;  for  a  portion  of  them  relates 
to  the  creation  of  the  world  a  portion  is  his- 
torical, and  a  third  portion  is  legislative." 
These  testimonies  reflect  the  accepted  view  of 
all  Jews.  Pharisees,  Sadducees,  Essenes, 
Palestinian  and  Alexandrian  Jews  all  are 
agreed  on  this  point.  To  suppose  that  such  a 
view  would  be  universal  if  the  Pentateuch  had 
been  given  to  the  people  at  any  time  after  the 
division  of  the  monarchy,  is  to  charge  the  Jew- 
ish people  with  a  lack  of  intelligence  and  a 
weakness  of  credulity  utterly  unworthy  of 
their  history.  The  critics  would  have  us  be 
lieve  the  imagined  Unknown  first  borrowed 
the  name  of  Moses  because  of  its  superlative 
prestige,  and  then  proceeded  to  re-enact  the 
legislation  of  Moses  in  a  broader  and  more 
spiritual  manner,  and  with  true  prophetic  in- 
spiration. That  is  to  say,  they  would  have  us 
believe  tha*;  a  greater  than  Moses  arose  in 
Israel,  but  sank  out  of  sight  without  ever 
being  recognized  by  his  contemporaries,  yet 
giving  to  his  race  the  most  important  literary 
production  in  all  their  history,  though  his 
name  has  not  a  whisper  of  connection  with  it. 


40  Moses  and  the  Poitateuch. 

, . 

The  credulity  of  the  critics  may  be  equal  to 
this,  but  not  many  will  be  their  followers. 

5.  A  side  light  is  thrown  upon  the  subject 
by  the  existence  of  a  Samaritan  Pentateuch. 
Most  scholars  do  not  attribute  much  import- 
ance to  this  fact,  and  yet  when  all  thje  circum- 
stances are  considered,  the  fact  is  not  without 
significance  and  importance.  The  [Samari- 
tans accepted  no  other  books  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  except  the  Pentateuch.  Knowing 
their  hostility  to  the  Jews  of  the  restoration, 
it  is  utterly  incredible  that  they  would  have 
accepted  the  Pentateuch  had  it  been  a  post- 
exilian  production.  Unquestionably  they  be- 
lieved that  it  was  from  Moses,  and  their  ac- 
ceptance of  it  points  clearly  to  an  established 
recognition  of  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the 
book  as  it  is,  previous  to  the  rupture  of  the 
kingdom.  But  such  evidence  simply  points  to 
the  existence  of  the  book  from  the  time  of 
Moses. 

6.  The  remaining  Old  Testament  Scriptures, 
which  are  among  the  older  productions,  bear 
witness  to  the  previous  existence  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch by  striking  references  to  passages  in 
the  same.   Often  there  are  verbal  coincidences 


The  Alain  Arguments.  41 

of  expression  so  accurate  as  to  indicate  a 
written  antecedent  rather  than  oral  tradi- 
tion. Hengstenberg,  in  his  work  on  the  "Au- 
thenticity of  the  Pentateuch,"  has  rendered 
most  valuable  service  to  the  student  along  this 
line.  The  Book  of  Joshua  is  so  full  of  these 
references  that  the  critics  have  been  com 
pelled  to  declare  that  it  also  was  written  at 
the  later  date  which  they  give  to-the  Penta- 
teuch. We  shall  discuss  this  further  in  Chap- 
ter XII.  In  the  Book  of  Judges  the  refusal 
of  Gideon  to  receive  the  crown  of  Israel  in- 
dicates a  knowledge  of  the  Mosaic  law  upon 
the  subject.  The  same  may  be  said  with  ref 
erence  to  Samuel's  unwillingness  to  elect  a 
king.  The  critics  argue  that  Israel  did  not 
have  all  of  the  law  in  that  early  day  in  the 
land,  on  the  ground  that  the  records  show  so 
many  violations  of  it.  But  Bleek  himself,  in 
his  introduction,  is  candid  enough  to  admit 
that  the  fact  that  the  laws  were  not  observed 
is  not  sufficient  proof  that  they  did  not  exist. 
In  the  earlier  prophets,  Isaiah,  Micah,  Amos, 
Hosea,  there  are  continual  references  to  the 
Pentateuch.  It  is  also  true  that  the  Hebrew 
l^salter,  whenever   compiled,  is    a  "precious 


42  Moses  a?id  the  Pentateuch. 

fruit  of  the  religious  life  of  Israel  under  the 
law,  and  requires  for  its  understanding  just 
such  a  national  history  and  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tem as  are  presented  in  the  Pentateuchal 
books." 

7.  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  expressly  certified 
the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch.  In 
Chapter  XIV.  we  shall  consider  more  fully 
this  fact.  Suffice  it  now  to  say  that  while  the 
critics  would  turn  aside  this  whole  matter  by 
saying  that  Christ  and  the  apostles  accommo- 
dated themselves  to  the  popular  beliefs  of 
their  time,  the  subject  is  quite  incapable  of 
beino;  thus  summarily  dismissed.  Until  recent 
years  Christ's  word  was  final  authority  in  the 
Evangelical  Christian  Church,  and  to  most  of 
the  members  of  that  Church  the  word  of  the 
Son  of  God  still  stands  as  the  ultimate  deci- 
sive utterance  of  infallible  truth. 


VI. — Recent  Corroborative  Discoveries  From 
the  Monuments. 

"One  by  one,"  says  Professor  Sayce,  of  Ox- 
ford, "the  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament 
upon  -which  the  oversubtle  analysis  of  modern 
criticism  had  cast  suspicion  and  doubt  are 
being  vindicated  by  the  progress  of  Oriental 
research."  It  should  be  said,  moreover,  that 
the  critics  have  largely  ignored  this  realm  of 
scientific  research.  All  along  they  have  based 
one  of  their  strongest  arguments  on  the  as- 
sumption that  both  the  Israelites  themselves 
and  the  populations  by  whom  they  were  sur 
rounded  were  ignorant  of  the  art  of  writing 
books  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan 
and  during  the  age  of  the  judges.  They  sup- 
posed the  literary  period  of  Israel  to  have  be- 
gun with  Samuel.  The  oldest  inscription  yet 
discovered  in  the  Phoenician  alphabet  is  fixed 
at  the  time  of  the  Moabite  king  Mesha,  the 
contemporary  of  Ahab.  The  critics  asked 
why  no  older  inscriptions  had  been  found,  if 
(4-.) 


44  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

the  art  of  writing  had  been  known  centuries 
earlier.  Within  recent  years  the  archasologist 
has  given  the  answer.  True,  the  earlier  lit- 
erature was  not  inscribed  upon  papyrus  or 
written  in  forms  of  the  Phoenician  alphabet. 
It  was  entrusted  to  more  enduring  tablets  of 
clay,  while  the  language  and  script  in  whijh 
it  has  been  preserved  were  both  disused  in 
the  Palestine  of  a  later  day.  A  single  blow 
of  the  excavator's  pick  has  shattered  some  of 
the  most  ingenious  conclusions  of  the  critics. 
Adhering  to  our*  plan  of  brief  statements, 
we  can  only  touch  upon  this  fascinating  sub- 
ject. Every  Bible  student  should  be  watch- 
ing eagerly  the  result  of  the  explorations 
which  are  being  pushed  in  Egypt,  Assyria 
and  Palestine.  The  more  familiar  account  of 
the  Akkadian  record  of  the  flood  is  given  by 
Professor  Bissell,  in  his  edition  of  Genesis, 
previously  mentioned.  This  account  is  strik- 
ingly in  accord  with  that  in  Genesis,  espe- 
cially in  certain  points  attacked  by  the  critics, 
as  in  the  matter  of  a  second  announcement. 
Authorities  agree  that  the  date  of  the  origi- 
nals of  this  record  is  about  2000  B.  C,  or  five 
hundred  years  before  Moses.   The  Babylonian 


Rcceyit  Corroborative  Discoveries.       45 

record  is  in  the  form  of  a  simple  continuous 
narrative  which  follows  the  biblical  order. 
Thus  the  theory  of  the  critics  that  the  account 
in  Genesis .  is  made  up  of  two  fragmentary 
parts,  and  that  it  could  not  have  been  written 
in  its  present  form  by  Moses,  is  set  aside  by 
the  fact  of  its  existence  previous  to  Moses. 
To  confirm  the  fact  that  Moses  was  familiar 
with  this  account,  we  have  more  recent  dis 
coveries  from  the  monuments  which  are  of  re- 
markable character  in  demonetrating  great 
literary  activity  in  Bible  lands  previous  to  the 
time  of  Moses. 

In  the  year  1887-8  a  number  of  cuneiform 
tablets  were  taken  from  the  ruins  of  a  city 
of  ancient  Egypt,  the  site  of  which  is  now 
known  as  Tel  el-Amarna.  They  consist  of 
letters  and  dispatches  sent  to  the  Egyptian 
court  by  the  kings  of  Babylonia,  Assyria  and 
Syria,  and  the  Egyptian  governors  and  vassal 
princes  in  the  subject  province  of  Palestine. 
They  are  written  in  the  script  and  language 
of  Babylonia,  which  was  at  that  time  the  com- 
mon language  of  diplomacy,  and  it  proves  that 
there  must  have  been  a  very  general  literary 
activity  and  some  educational  system  to  have 


46  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

mastered  the  complicated  writing  of  Baby- 
lonia all  through  the  East,  The  most  inter- 
esting of  the  letters  from  Palestine  are  from 
a  certain  Ebed-Tob,  the  governor  of  Jerusalem. 
He  was  not  governor  by  appointment  of  the 
king  of  Egypt,  but  an  ally  who  paid  tribute. 
He  speaks  of  "the  city  of  the  mountain  of 
Salim."  The  word  "Uru"  signified  city,  so 
that  Urusalim  is  the  city  of  Salim,  identical 
with  Jerusalem  This  Ebed-Tob  speaks  of  him- 
self as  being  a  "priest  of  the  most  high  God." 
We  turn  to  Gen.  xiv.  and  read  the  account  of 
Melchizedek,  king  of  Salem,  priest  of  the  most 
high  God,  and  identify  this  description  with 
that  of  the  tablets,  which  thus  carry  us  back 
to  the  time  of  Abraham.  Not  only  so,  but 
the  "written  bricks"  confirm  the  account,  in 
that  same  chapter  of  Genesis,  of  the  incursion 
of  Chedorlaomer,  a  Babylonian  prince. 

But  the  most  remarkable  coincidence  in  the 
history  of  this  work  occurred  in  the  year  1892. 
Among  the  letters  of  the  Tel  el-Amarna  tablets 
are  two  that  were  written  by  governors  of  the 
city  of  Laohish,  one  of  whom  was  Zimrida. 
One  of  the  letters  from  the  king  of  Jerusalem 
conveys  the   information  that  Zimrida    was 


Recent  Corroborative  Discoveries.       47 

murdered  at  Lachish  by  the  servants  of  the 
Eoryptian  king.  In  1890  Dr.  Flinders  Petrie 
was  excavating  in  Southern  Palestine,  at  a 
lofty  mound  known  as  Tel  el  Hesy.  From 
various  indications  he  suspected  that  he  had 
identified  this  very  city  of  Lachish.  In  1892 
the  work  was  continued  by  Mr.  Bliss,  ot 
Beirut.  Not  only  did  he  fully  identify  the 
ancient  Amorite  city,  but  he  found  tablets  ex- 
actly like  those  of  Tel  el-Amarna,  and  upon 
them  this  very  name  of  Zimrida  occurs  twice. 
Scarcely  have  the  letters  from  upper  Egypt 
been  translated,  when  their  counterparts  in 
Southern  Palestine  come  to  the  light,  and  the 
two  parts  of  a  correspondence  which  took 
place  before  the  Exodus  are  joined  together. 
It  is  but  the  beginning,  for  Mr.  Bliss  is  just 
at  the  entrance  of  the  ancient  archive  cham- 
ber of  the  governor's  palace. 

The  result  of  this  recent  discovery  is  con- 
clusive evidence  that  the  land  of  Canaan  was 
inhabited  by  people  who  were  by  no  means 
the  unlettered  tribes  imagined  by  the  critics. 
One  of  their  cities  was  named  Kirjath  Sepher, 
which  means  "the  city  of  books,"  and  indi- 
cates libiaries  in  Canaan  as  there  were  in 


48  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

Babylonia.  In  the  song  of  Deborah  and  Barak 
we  read,  in' Judges  v.  14,  that  "out  of  Zebuion 
came  down  they  that  handle  the  pen  of  the 
ready  writer."  This  was  clearly  the  Hebrew, 
but  some  other  meaning  was  put  into  it,  in 
the  supposition  that  there  were  no  ready 
writers.  But  the  original  text  is  now  most 
clearly  vindicated.  Moreover,  the  tablets  show 
that  Canaan  before  the  exodus  was  the  great 
highway  between  the  Mediterranean  Sea  and 
the  eastern  centers  of  commerce.  Canaan 
paid  to  Egypt  an  annual  land  tax,  which  was 
assessed  according  to  surveys  of  the  Egyptian 
Government.  The  enlightened  and  warlike 
Amorites  and  Hittites  were  there,  and  many 
of  the  cities  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures  are 
also  mentioned  on  the  tablets.  Professor  Mas- 
pero  says:  "The  land  of  Canaan  was  a  vast 
emporium  where  Africa  met  Europe  and 
Af ia  "  Professor  Erman  says:  "There  was 
hardly  anything  which  the  Egypt  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  dynasty  had  not 
obtained  from  Syria.  The  culture  ot  the 
Syrians  must  therefore  have  been  very  highly 
advanced  to  have  obtained  such  a  conquest." 
With  all  this  information  let  it  be  remem- 


Recent  Corroborative  Discovej'ies.       49 


bered  that  the  conquest  by  Israel  was  only 
partial  even  until  the  time  of  David.  We  are 
told  in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges  that  "the 
children  of  Benjamin  did  not  drive  out  the 
Jebusites  that  inhabited  Jerusalem,  but  the 
Jebusites  dwell  with  the  children  of  Benjamin 
in  Jerusalem  unto  this  day."  We  also  read 
that  Manasseh  and  Ephraim  failed  to  dislodge 
the  inhabitants  of  some  six  cities,  while  Zebu- 
Ion,  Asher,  Naphtali  and  Dan  failed  to  make 
their  conquest  complete.  We  know  also  how 
Israel  grew  into  intimate  relations  with  the 
people  of  the  land,  and  whatever  else  they 
received  of  hurttul  influences,  we  can  not 
doubt  that  they  must  have  felt  the  touch  of 
their  intellectual  development  and  literary  ac- 
tivity. Such  was  the  literary  atmosphere 
which  pervaded  the  time  when  Moses  wrote 
the  Pentateuch.  The  increasing  evidence  from 
the  monuments  indicates  that  it  was  the 
golden  age  of  literature  in  the  history  of  the 
ancient  East.  Thus  one  of  the  strongest  as- 
sumptions of  the  critics  against  the  Mosaic 
authorship  is  completely  annihilated. 

We  can  not  dismiss  this  brief  mention  with- 
out noting  that  the  monuments  have  corrob- 


5o  Jl/osrs  and  tJie  Pcnta'ciicJi' 

orated  the  Pentateuch  in  other  ways,  nota- 
bly in  confirming  the  accuracy  of  historic  ref 
erences.  In  May,  1890,  Dr.  Brugsch  Bey 
wrote  an  article  on  "Joseph  in  Egypt"  in  the 
Deutsche  Rundschau.  It  was  suggested  by 
the  discovery  in  the  previous  year  of  a  stone 
at  Luxor  by  Wilbour,  which  stone  mentions 
the  seven  years  of  want,  and  the  attempt  ot 
one  Chit  het  to  banish  the  calamity.  Brugsch 
testifies  to  the  historical  correctness  of  the 
story  as  given  in  Genesis,  identifying  many 
names  and  places.  He  says  the  evidence  is 
so  conclusive  that  you  could  believe  the  wri- 
ter of  the  story  of  Joseph  "read  his  state- 
ments concerning  the  afi'airs  of  ancient  Egypt 
from  the  very  monuments  themselves."  An- 
other instance  is  the  discovery  of  Ur  of  Chal- 
dees.  The  Bible  student  had  long  been  told 
to  find  Ur  at  Oorfah  six  hundred  miles  away, 
entirely  beyond  the  land  of  Chaldea.  But  the 
Bible  still  taught  that  Ur  was  in  Chaldea.  It 
was  overlooked  because  modern  students  for- 
got that  the  Persian  Gulf  has  been  filled  up 
by  the  Euphrates  through  the  centuries,  and 
the  ancient  city  which  was  on  its  coast  is  far 
inland.     For  years  they  looked  in  the  wrong 


Recent  Corroborative  Discoi'eries.       51 

place,  but  the  discoveries  by  Lenormant  and 
Smith  have  identified  Mugheir  as  the  site  of 
(he  home  of  Tereh  and  Abraham.  The  as- 
sumptions of  the  scholars,  based  on  insuffi- 
cient conjectures,  were  wrong.  The  state- 
ments of  Scripture,  based  upon  the  facts,  were 
accurate  and  correct.  Thus  does  every  new 
item  of  actual  history  confirm  the  reliability 
of  the  infallible  record  of  Scripture. 


VII.— The  Book  of  Genesis. 

So  far  as  the  Bible  is  concerned,  the  his- 
tory of  man,  his  creation  and  development,  is 
linked  with  the  story  of  his  redemption.  "The 
light  of  nature  and  the  works  of  creation  and 
providence  are  not  sufficient  to  give  that 
knowledge  of  God  and  of  his  will  which  is 
necessary  unto  salvation.".  Therefore  we 
have  the  revelation  of  that  divine  will  and  the 
record  of  God's  dealings  with  men  in  connec- 
tion with  the  bestowment  of  this  saving  truth. 
The  purpose  to  accomplish  this  result  at  once 
explains  the  fact  that  all  matters  external  are 
only  touched  upon  as  they  bear  some  relation 
to  the  history  of  man's  redemption,  and  also 
explains  th«  marvelous  'consent  o  al  the 
parts,"  from  Genesis  to  Revelation.  Jus  so, 
also,  this  purpose  explains  the  character  of 
the  Pentateuch,  and  is  the  key  to  its  unity  of 
design  and  construction.  The  great  subject 
of  the  Pentateuch  is  the  establishment  of  the 
Hebrew  theocracy.  Its  central  point  is  the 
(52) 


The  Book  of  Genesis.  53 

giving  of  the  law  at  Sinai.  All  that  goes  be- 
fore leads  up  to  this,  and  that  which  comes 
after  recounts  the  way  in  which  Israel  was 
schooled  in  that  law  until  Canaan  was 
reached. 

The  design  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  is  there- 
fore made  apparent.  It  is  intended  to  reveal 
the  unfolding  of  the  divine  plan  up  to  the  time 
of  the  exodus.  The  charge  of  composite  au- 
thorship has  been  made  against  Genesis  as 
against  no  other  book.  The  Elohist  and  Je- 
hovist  are  certainly  here,  according  to  the 
critics,  if  nowhere  else.  But  the  coherency 
of  the  record,  from  first  to  last,  is  most 
marked.  The  plan  of  procedure  is  seen  in 
the  recurrence  of  the  formula:  "These  are 
the  generations."  Ten  times  we  have  this  ex- 
pression, holding  us  to  a  special  line  of  de- 
scent, according  to  the  divine  selection.  A 
glance  at  the  following  table  will  show  the 
significance  of  this  plan : 

i.  1-ii.  3 General  account  of  the  creation. 

ii.  4-iv.  26.. .The  generations  of  the  heavens  and 
the  oarth. 

V.  1-vi.  8 The  generations  of  Adam. 

vi.  9-ix.29 "  "  "      Noah. 

X.  1-xi.  9 The  generations  of  the  sons  of  Noah. 

xi.  10-2G The  generations  of  Shem. 


54  Moses  and  the  Pentaieuch. 

xi.  27-xxv.  11 The  generations  of  Tereh. 

XXV.  12-18 "  "  "  Ishmael. 

XXV.  19-xxxv.  29 "  "  "        Isaac. 

xxxvi.  1-xxxvii.  1 "  "  "        Esau. 

xxxvii.  2-1.  26 "  "  "       Jacob. 

.  By  a  brief  analysis  of  this  table  we  discover 
some  instructive  facts.  The  initial  chapter 
gives  a  general  account  of  the  creation.  The 
critics  would  find  the  contents  of  the  second 
chapter  to  be  another  contradictory  account 
of  the  creation.  But  evidently  this  is  not  the 
purpose  of  the  chapter.  Its  thought  is  that 
out  of  all  this  creation  we  have  to  do  with 
man.  That  much  of  the  general  account 
which  bears  upon  the  need  of  a  man  to  till 
the  ground  already  covered  with  herb  and 
plant  is  repeated,  and  a  more  special  account 
of  man's  creation  follows.  From  Adam 
Noah  the  main  purpose  is  to  show  how  the 
institution  of  salvation  was  made  necessary  by 
the  fall  and  corruption  of  the  race.  In  the 
tenth  chapter  the  writer  pauses  to  give  that 
remarkable  ethnological  register  of  the  fam- 
ilies of  men  "after  their  tongues,  in  their 
countries  and  in  their  nations."  Then  we 
come  to  Tereh,  and  note  that  the  name  of 
Abraham  does  not  appear  in  our  table.     It  is 


The  Book  of  Genesis.  5  5 

a  remarkable  omission.  Had  that  table  been 
prepared  at  a  period  long  after  Moses,  ic  is 
morally  certain  that  the  name  of  Abraham 
would  have  been  there.  But  the  laws  of  lit- 
erary criticism  point  to  this  unexpected  feat- 
ure as  the  surer  evidence  of  authenticity. 
Note,  further,  how  Ishmael  is  dismissed  with 
six  verses,  for  Isaac  is  in  the  chosen  line  of 
descent;  and  then  how  but  one  chapter  is  de- 
voted to  Esau,  while  Jacob  and  his  family  are 
considered  as  the  seed  of  the  coming  nation. 
As  you  study  this  plan  you  will  see  how  it 
draws  you  irresistibly  to  the  time  of  Moses  as 
the  standpoint  from  which  it  was  written. 
"Whatever  historic  materials  or  patriarchal 
records  may  have  been  used,  the  fact  becomes 
clear  that  this  book  was  written  to  fit  into 
the  account  of  the  exodus  and  that  it  looked 
forward  from  the  time  that  Canaan  was 
promised  to  Abraham,  past  the  thralldom  of 
Egypt,  to  the  time  of  Israel's  settlement  in  the 
land.  In  former  chapters  we  have  seen  that 
the  Akkadian  account  of  the  flood  demon- 
strates the  existence  of  a  plain  continuous 
story  previous  to  the  time  of  Moses.  We  also 
have  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Bruor«ch  Bey  to  the 


56  Moses  and  tJie  Pentateiich. 


unbroken  continuity  of  the  story  of  Joseph. 
To  turn  from  all  these  evidences  of  coherency 
and  unity  to  the  theory  of  the  critics,  with 
their  analysis  as  presented  in  Dr.  Bissell's 
edition  of  Genesis  in  colors,  is  to  appreciate 
his  quotation  from  Prof.  James  Robertson, 
who  says  the  crying  need  of  the  time  "is  of  a 
criticism  that  shall  start  by  admitting  that 
the  writer  possessed  ordinary  intelligence  and 
knows  fairly  well  what  he  is  writing  about." 
The  charge  that  Genesis  has  in  it  much  un- 
historical  matter  should  receive  some  atten- 
tion One  ground  for  this  charge  is  the  as- 
sumption that  the  cosmogony  of  the  book  is 
marked,  like  the  traditions  of  all  nations,  with 
mythical  statements.  Touching  the  account 
of  the  creation,  the  reader  is  referred  to  a  re- 
cent publi.;ation  by  Prof.  James  D  Dana,  of 
Yale  University,  entitled  "Genesis  and  Sci- 
ence," in  which  he  tells  us  that  the  conclu- 
sions on  the  last  page  of  science  are  in  such 
marvelous  harmony  with  the  statements  on 
the  first  page  of  Genesis  as  to  convince  him 
that  no  man  could  have  written  them  without 
having  been  divinely  inspired.  Touchirg  the 
points  which  arise  in  connection  with  the  ac- 


TIic  Book  of  Genesis.  57 


count  of  the  flood,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
Prof.  J.  W.  Dawson's  recent  book  on  '  Modern 
Science  in  Bible  Lands,"  in  which  this  emi- 
nent Christian  scientist  successfully  repels  at- 
tacks against  the  unscientific  character  of 
biblical  statements  when  they  are  fairly  un 
derstood.  We  have  previously  noted  the 
complete  vindication  of  the  historic  accuracy 
of  the  Egyptology  of  Genesis.  Modern  ethnol- 
ogists are  amazed  at  the  profound  research 
revealed  in  the  tenth  chapter,  whose  contents 
are  verified  by  every  established  fact  of  an- 
cient history.  Modern  linguists  are  finding, 
as  Prof  Max  Mueller  says,  "the  elements  of 
the  three  mother  tongues  as  they  existed  be- 
fore their  first  separation,"  in  the  Sumerian 
writings  unearthed  in  the  ruins  of  Birs  Nim- 
rod,  the  traditional  tower  of  Babel  Thus 
along  many  lines  the  student  of  Genesis  finds 
reassuring  evidence  that  the  Word  of  God  will 
keep  abreast  of  all  advancing  thought,  and 
under  all  the  fires  of  whatever  sort  will  shine 
with  the  unfading  luster  of  the  eternal  truth 


VIII. -The  Book  of  Exodus. 

In  the  Book  of  Exodus  we  touch  the  life  of 
Moses.  Naturally,  we  would  expect  to  find  in 
it  a  certain  infusion  of  that  peculiar  evidence 
of  personal  knowledge  which  gives  a  living 
character  to  contemporaneous  history.  And 
this  we  do  find.  One  of  the  most  notable  of 
all  the  commentaries  on  Exodus  is  that  of  Dr. 
Kalisch.  He  viewed  Exodus  as  "formiDg  the 
center  of  the  divine  revelation."  and  conse- 
quently as  being  "the  most  important  volume 
which  the  human  race  possesses."  As  Dr. 
Kalisch  brings  the  intimate  familiarity  of 
Jewish  scholarship  to  the  text,  it  is  very  sug- 
gestive to  have  him  assert,  as  against  the  Jew- 
ish and  Christian  critics,  that  "we  see  the 
completest  harmony  in  all  parts  of  Exodus; 
we  consider  it  as  a  perfect  whole,  pervaded 
throughout  by  one  spirit  and  the  same  lead- 
ing ideas." 

The  critics  are  on  the  ground,  but  the 
student  who  attempts  to  follow  them  with 
(58) 


The  Book  of  Exodus.  59 

profit  is  in  despair.  At  times  they  virtually 
repudiate  their  own  theories.  For  instance, 
Knobel,  DeWette  and  others  assign  Ex.  i.  15- 
22  to  the  Jehovist,  whereas  the  word  Jehovah 
does  not  occur  in  the  passage,  while  Elohim 
occurs  three  times.  Then,  chapters  xxv.  and 
xxviii.  are  ascribed  to  the  Elohist,  whereas 
Elohim  is  not  found  in  them,  and  Jehovah  oc- 
curs five  times.  Chapter  iii.  is  called  Elohis- 
tic,  though  Jehovah  occurs  twenty  times  and 
Elohim  but  seven.  There  is  something  hope- 
less about  this.  Another  etjle  of  analysis  is 
given  us  by  Professor  Driver,  in  his  discussion 
of  the  Decalogue.  He  is  considering  the  like- 
ness of  the  text  to  that  of  Deuteronomy,  and 
says:  "It  is  an  old  and  probable  supposition 
that  in  its  original  form  the  Decalogue  con- 
sisted merely  of  the  Commandments  them- 
selves, and  that  the  explanatory  comments  ap- 
pended in  certain  cases  were  only  added  sud- 
sequently."  For  instance,  the  original  Sec- 
ond Commandment  would  be:  "Thou  shalt  not 
make  to  thyself  any  graven  image."  Professor 
Driver  discusses  the  problem,  and  considers 
the  probability  that  the  appended  comments 
were  added  atter  Deuteronomy  was  written. 


6o  Moses  and  tJic  Pcntaieuch. 

He  concludes  thus:  "On  the  whole,  therefore, 
the  more  probable  view  appears  to  be  that 
these  clauses  are  in  their  original  place  in 
Exodus."  On  one  page  we  are  told  this  added 
comment  is  improbable,  and  on  the  very  next 
page. we  are  told  it  is  probable. 

The  Book  of  Exodus  reveals  the  clear  pur- 
pose to  show  how  Israel  multiplied  in  Egypt 
until  the  time  of  Moses,  to  give  an  aocount  of 
the  circumstances  in  which  the  Israelites 
quitted  Egypt,  and  to  describe  the  giviug  of 
the  law,  together  with  the  way  the  people  en- 
tered upon  the  institutional  life  which  cen- 
tered about  the  tabernacle  service.  The  nar- 
rative flows  on  without  a  break.  There  are 
some  gaps,  but  because  of  the  simnle  fact  that 
nothing  occurred  which  called  for  a  pla"e  in 
the  record.  The  critics  object  to  this  unity  om 
the  ground  that  the  narrative  has  a  decidedly 
sectional  character.  It- is  true  that  we  have 
several  sections  which  seem  to  be  complete  in 
themselves,  and  this  is  ju8t  what  we  might  ex- 
pect from  a  narrator  who  wrote  the  account  of 
one  act  or  scene  in  the  drama  at  intervals  as 
opportunity  afforded.  While  these  sections 
appear    upon    analysis,   they  betray  no   dis- 


The  Book  of  Exodus.  61 

j  'in ted  character,  but  preserve  a  continuous 
harmony.  If,  however,  this  arrangement  had 
been  made  by  a  literary  redactor  of  a  later 
age,  he  would  probably  have  omitted  some  of 
ihe  repetitions  and  covered  up  the  sectional 
points.  The  very  character  of  the  work  indi- 
cates tha";  we  have  it  in  its  original  form. 

The  critics  further  object  to  the  Mosaic 
authorship  of  Exodus  because  Moses  is 
spoken  of  in  the  third  person,  and  because 
once  or  twice  there  are  expressions  compli- 
mentary to  Moses,  which  they  say  he  would 
not  have  written  about  himself.  As  to  the 
first  point,  it  is  historic  that  Xenophon  and 
Caesar,  in  writing  histories  of  which  they 
were  the  heroes,  both  speak  of  themselves  in 
the  third  person.  But  the  important  fact  is 
that  sneaking  of  one's  self  in  the  third  person 
was  common  in  Egypt  at  that  time.  Kings 
had  their  victories  recorded  thus,  and  peo- 
ple wrote  their  own  epitaphs  beforehand  in 
the  third  person.  What  more  need  be  said? 
As  to  the  mention  of  a  praiseful  fact,  as  in  xi. 
3,  we  may  say  the  wonder  is  that  there  is  not 
more  of  it.  The  reference  is,  in  fa  .t,  decid 
edly  modest,  and  in  addition  the  whole   book 


62  Aloses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

strikingly  reveald  a  deep  spirit  of  humility  and 
sense  of  unworthiness  in  Moses. 

We  have  some  important  facts  of  a  positive 
character  which  the  Book  of  Exodus  con- 
tributes. Canon  Cook,  in  his  appendix  to  Ex- 
odus in  the  Speaker's  Commentary,  has  elab- 
orately treated  of  the  frequent  occurrence  in 
the  book  of  Egyptian  words  and  phrases. 
From  thirty  to  forty  such  words  occur  in  the 
first  sixteen  chapters.  The  writer  shows  evi- 
ci  ent  familiarity  with  the  Egyptian  language. 
Not  only  so,  but  he  reveals  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  climate,  customs  and 
products  of  Egypt,  such  as  implies  a  long  res- 
idence there.  It  takes  years  to  possess  ac- 
curate knowledge  of  habits,  usages,  religious 
ideas,  etc.  Moreover,  every  year  is  adding 
evidence  to  the  correctness  of  Exodus  in  this 
respect.  Of  equal  importance  is  the  fact  that 
this  same  writer  reveals  an  equally  perfect 
familiarity  with  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  with 
its  vegetable  and  animal  products,  and  its  nat- 
ural phenomena.  That  part  of  the  book 
which  refers  to  the  sojourn  is  pervaded  by  a 
local  coloring,  an  atmosphere  of  the  desert, 
which  has  always  made  itself  felt  by  every 
traveler  who  has  explored  that  region. 


Ihe  Book  of  Exodus.  di^ 

This  double  character  of  the  writer's 
knowledge  of  Egypt  and  the  Sinaitic  penin- 
sula points  to  Moses,  and  to  no  one  else,  as  the 
writer.  It  is  simply  inconceivable  that  some 
later  writer  should  reveal  these  character- 
istics. He  would  never  have  appreciated  the 
significance  of  Egyptian  words  in  his  narra- 
tive. If  some  later  imaginary  writer  had 
lived  in  Egypt,  it  is  too  much  to  ask  us  to 
imagine  him  traveling  the  Sinaitic  peninsula, 
infested,  as  it  is  to  this  day,  with  murderous 
bandits.  There  was  no  time  between  the  ex- 
odus and  the  reign  of  Solomon  when  an  Is- 
raelite would  have  been  at  all  likely  to  possess 
such  familiarity.  But  why  need  we  argue 
further?  The  book,  from  first  to  last,  reveals 
the  living  touch  of  the  great  leader  of  Israel. 
Moreover,  it  is  Exodus  which  specifically  men- 
tions the  fact  that  Moses  was  writing  these 
things  in  a  book:  xvii.  14  and  xxiv.  4.  Both 
external  and  internal  evidence  are  in  har- 
mony in  pointing  to  Moses  as  the  only  man 
who  fills  all  the  requirements  essential  to  the 
authorship  of  this  book. 


IX.— The  Book  of  Leviticus. 

The  Book  of  Leviticus  forms  the  center  and 
heart  of  the  five  books  of  Moses.  It  contains 
the  greater  part  of  the  Sinaitic  legislation,  from 
the  time  of  the  erection  of  the  tabernacle, 
commonly  termed  the  Levitical  code.  The 
integrity  of  the  book  is  generally  admitted 
Many  critics  who  favor  different  documents  in 
other  parts  of  the  Pentateuch,  ascribe  thid 
part  mainly  to  one  vs^riter,  the  Elohist.  Others, 
hovs^ever,  bring  their  dissecting-knife  here  as 
elsewhere.  Only  one  passage  in  the  text 
might  intimate  a  later  date,  namely,  xviii,  28. 
But  the  context  shows  nothing  unnatural  in 
the  tone  of  anticipation  which  is  here  pre- 
sented. The  expected  possession  of  the  prom- 
ised land  gives  meaning  to  the  whole  history. 

In  the  midst  of  the  legislation  we  have  a 
historical  section,  comprising  chapters  viii.-x., 
recounting  the  consecration  of  Aaron  and 
his  sons  before  the  congregation.  Some  of  the 
critics  say  this  section  is  mythical  because  it 
(64) 


The  Book  of  Lev  it  ii  us  65 

records  a  miracle.  Others  say  it  \iz,i  torged 
in  order  to  support  the  authority  of  the  sacer- 
dotal caste.  To  such  extremities  are  they 
driven  to  disprove  it  as  contemporaneous 
history.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  one 
forging  an  interpolation  to  exalt  the  priest- 
hood of  a  later  day,  would  have  pictured  the 
priests  who  figured  in  the  narrative  as  re- 
ceiving the  punishment  of  death  because  of 
their  gins. 

The  book  is  full  of  traces  of  the  Mosaic 
period.  In  the  earlier  chapters,  when  the 
priests  are  mentioned,  Aaron  and  his  sons  are 
named.  The  tabernacle  is  the  sanctuary  and 
no  other  place  of  worship  is  anywhere  men- 
tioned. The  Israelites  are  always  described 
as  a  congregation  under  the  cjmmand  of  the 
elders  of  the  congregation.  Everything  has 
reference  to  life  in  a  camp,  and  that  camp 
in  command  of  Moses.  This  is  illustrated  by 
the  fact  that  the  law  touching  the  slaughter 
(A  the  sacrifice  in  chapter  xvii.,  which  was  for 
the  camp,  was  amended  in  Deut.  xii.,  in  view 
of  the  permanent  settlement  in  Canaan. 
Almost  every  line  touches  the  age  of  Moses. 
Yet  the   critics  would   have  us  believe   that 


66  Aloses  and  the  Feniateuch. 

these  laws  gradually  came  into  the  life  and 
customs  of  Israel  through  long  years  of  de- 
velopment. Such  a  slow  growth  would  not 
reveal  these  distinctive  historic  settings  which 
identify  the  receiving  of  the  laws  at  the  hand 
of  Moses. 

Moreover,  Pome  of  the  laws  clearly  fiad 
their  explanation  in  certain  Egyptian  customs 
against  which  the  Israelites  are  warned  and 
commanded.  This  is  specifically  stated  in 
chapter  xviii.,  where  reference  is  also  made  to 
Canaan.  In  the  chapter  on  the  recent  dis- 
coveries from  the  monuments,  we  pre 
sented  the  conclusive  evidence  that  a  man 
like  Moses  would  know  much  of  the  general 
character  of  Canaan  as  well  as  Egypt.  More- 
over, Israel  is  taught  that  it  is  because  of  their 
sins  against  God  that  the  Canaanites  are  to  be 
exterminated.  Hence  the  significance  of  laws 
which  take  meaning  in  view  of  Egypt  on  one 
side  and  Canaan  on  the  other,  k  particular 
instance  of  familiarity  with  Egypt  is  the  hint 
at  the  Egyptian  custom  of  marriage  with  sis- 
ters, a  custOQi  which  stands  alone  among  the 
prevailing  habits  of  antiquity.  Herodotus  and 
Diodorus  tell  of  other  abominations  among 
the  Egyptians  prohibited  in  this  section. 


The  Book  of  Leviticus.  67 

Another  set  of  laws  point  to  a  pre-Canaanite 
origin,  namely,  those  in  chapter  xxv.,  which 
refer  to  the  Sabbatical  year  and  the  yea.r  of 
jubilee.  It  seems  that  this  law  was  never  ob- 
served until  after  the  captivity.  We  learn  from 
'1  Chron.  xxxvi.  21  that  the  years  of  the  cap- 
tivity betokened  the  purpose  of  God  to  honor 
the  law  which  Israel  had  broken.  After  the 
captivity  the  law  was  religiously  kept,  as  was 
the  law  touching  idolatry.  But  it  is  perfectly 
apparent  that  such  a  law  could  not  have  been 
promulgated  at  any  time  between  the  settle- 
ment of  the  land  and  the  captivity.  Every- 
thing in  the  atmosphere  of  the  life  of  Israel 
makes  against  such  a  possibility.  The  law  is 
a  part  of  that  ideal  state  which  was  so  fully 
elaborated  by  Moses  when  he"  was  delineating 
the  divine  portrait  for  the  chosen  people.  It 
is  just  such  passages  which  are  the  basis  of 
the  authority  for  u (iterances  of  the  prophets 
in  condemnation  of  Israel's  departure  from 
the  known  laws  of  Jehovah.  The  previous 
existence  of  the  law  is  necessary  for  an  ade- 
quate explanation  of  the  later  history  of  its 
observance.  Israel  recognized  one  of  their 
crying  sins,  in  punishment  for  which  they  suf- 


6S  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch . 

fered  captivity,  to  be  the  f\ulure  to  keep  this 
law.  But  there  is  no  time  at  which  the  law 
could  have  been  ^iven,  in  the  light  of  the  his- 
tory, except  at  the  time  of  Moses. 

We  have  touched  here  a  fact  of  far-reach- 
ing importance.  The  whole  Book  ot  Leviti- 
cus is  marked  by  a  prophetical  character.  Its 
elaborate  ritual  is  saturated  with  a  spiritual 
significance.  It  was  a  shadow  whereof  the 
substance  is  Christ  and  his  kingdom.  No  one 
can  study  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  without 
realizing  this  fact,  and  realizing  also  that  the 
man  Moses,  and  no  one  else,  was  the  chosen 
servant  of  the  God  of  Israel,  through  whom 
this  ceremonial  system  was  given  to  the  peo- 
ple. The  reference  is  as  clearly  t:)  the  his 
toric  Moses  as  to'the  historic  Abraham  or  the 
historic  Christ.  We  read  in  Heb.  iii.  5,  6  (R. 
V):  "Moses  indeed  was  faithful  in  all  his 
house  as  a  servant  for  a  testimony  of  those 
things  which  were  afterward  to  be  spoken; 
but  Christ  as  a  son,  over  his  house."  It  was 
a  delicate  thing  to  intimate  even  to  Christian 
Jews  that  Christ  was  worthy  of  greater  honor 
than  Moses.  They  venerated  him  almost  to 
idolatry  as   their   deliverer,   leader,  lawgiver 


The  Book  of  Leviticus.  69 


and  advocate  with  God.  The  inspired  writer 
of  the  Hebrews  means  to  say  that  Christ  is 
the  Moses  of  the  New  Testament.  Moses, 
with  his  marvelous  gifts,  was  raised  up  and 
trained  and  called  of  God  for  his  specific  life 
work.  The  law  was  given  by  Moses,  grace 
and  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ.  The  institu- 
tions of  Moses  were  the  scaffolding,  those  of 
Christ  the  finished  fabric  of  religious  truth. 
The  utterances  of  the  prophets  assume  the 
pre-existence  of  the  laws.  They  do  not  inti- 
mate a  slow  building  of  fragments  of  legisla- 
tion irto  a  code  that  found  its  compact  form 
after  most  of  the  life  of  Israel  had  been  spent. 
Instead  of  this,  the  Book  of  Leviticus  breathes 
a  constant  spirit  of  prophetic  anticipation  of 
Israel's  future  development  into  greatness  as 
these  laws  of  God  are  honored  and  obeyed. 


X.— The  Book  of  Numbers. 

The  special  problems  which  the  critics  have 
discovered  in  the  Book  of  Numbers  are  numer- 
ous. As  you  study  the  criticisms,  however, 
vou  realize  that  many  of  them  are  not  really 
directed  against  the  authenticity  of  the  book 
80  much  as  against  its  credibility.  Certainly 
some  of  them  are  efforts  to  disprove  its  divine 
inspiration.  As  in  other  sections  of  the  Pen 
tateuch,  they  draw  the  line  at  every  point 
where  the  narrative  recognizes  divine  inter- 
vention. For  instance,  DeWette  says  it  is 
quite  unnatural  to  suppose  that  Moses  would 
have  been  willing  to  spend  forty  years  in  wan- 
derings when  he  was  so  near  to  Canaan,  and 
he  takes  offense  at  the  statement  that  this 
wandering  was  a  punishment  for  Israel's  dis 
obedience.  Such  rationalistic,  destrirctive 
views  are  by  no  means  infrequent  among  the 
critics.  In  view  of  this,  it  is  disheartening  to 
have  our  modern  followers  of  the  critics,  who 
are  still  counted  evangelical,  constantly  quot 
(70) 


The  Book  of  Numbers.  7 1 

ing  these  destructive  rationalist?  from  page  to 
page  as  among  the  authorities  whom  we  are 
to  follow. 

It  will  be  possible,  in  the  limit  fixed  for 
these  chapters,  only  to  mention  the  special 
points  of  discussion  in  this  book.  There  is  a 
gap  of  thirty-seven  years  in  the  record,  in 
which  we  have  no  mention  of  the  doings  of 
Israel,  excep^^^ing  the  account  of  the  rebellion 
of  Koi*ah  and  his  coadjutors.  Some  critics 
say  this  proves  that  Israel  did  not  remain 
forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  while  others  say 
it  proves  that  the  record  is  incomplete.  But 
we  have  already  noted,  in  chapter  vii.,  that  it 
is  the  manifest  design  of  the  sacred  narrative 
to  record  only  the  events  which  touch  the  de- 
velopment of  the  plan  of  redemption  Hence 
the  record  passes  over  in  silence  the  time  in 
which  the  people  destined  to  die  are  being 
supplanted  by  the  next  generation.  They 
have  no  more  place  in  the  record.  The  critics 
have  also  made  much  of  the  several  events 
which  the  record  crowds  into  the  fortieth 
year.  Their  diffi^.ulty  rises  out  of  the  assump- 
tion that  each  event  mentioned  was  finished 
before  the  next  took  place;  but  evidently  noth- 


Moses  and  the  Pen  fate  itch. 


ing  prevents  some  of  them  from  going  on  sim- 
ultaneously, in  which  case  the  difficulty 
quickly  disappears. 

The  critics  have  made  savage  attacks  upon 
the  statistics  ia  this  book,  the  number  of  fight- 
ing mea,  the  number  of  the  congregition  and 
the  number  of  the  first  born.  We  refer  the 
reader  to  Keil  or  Kurtz  if  it  be  desired  to  see 
how  every  difficulty  that  has  been  imagined 
may  be  fairly  solved.  We  are  further  told 
that  the  marching  of  such  a  vast  host  of  peo- 
ple could  not  have  been  accomplished  as  the 
record  intimates.  Of  course,  even  th^  critics 
will  not  deny  that  Israel  did  actually  travel 
from  Egypt  to  Canaan,  and  that  they  must 
have  marched  in  some  fashion  The  account 
of  the  use  of  the  silver  trumpets  and  the  actual 
plans  for  order  ani  regularity  all  point  to  just 
the  modes  of  movement  recorded.  Then  ob- 
jections are  made  to  the  account  of  the  set- 
ting apart  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  as  betraying 
the  marks  of  fiction  But  the  clear  refutation 
of  this  charge  is  in  the  undeniable  fact  that 
the  cities  of  the  Levites,  whose  distribution  is 
mentioned  in  chapter  xxxv.,  were  actuary  oc- 
cupied by  that  tribe  from  the  beginning     The 


The  Book  of  Numbers.  73 


critics  claim  a  contradiction  between  iv.  2,  3 
and  viii.  24,  referring  to  the  proper  age  of 
Levites  for  duty.  A  moment's  examination 
shows  that  the  first  refers  to  carrying  the  tab- 
ernacle, and  the  second  to  performing  sacred 
functions  in  the  tabernacle.  The  heavier 
task  required  an  age  of  thirty  years;  the 
lighter  duties  simply  required  a  certain  ma 
turity  of  twenty  five  years. 

The  episode  of  Balaam  has  naturally  re- 
ceived considerable  attention.  It  is  true  it 
has  a  distinct  character.  It  is  also  true  that 
the^e  three  chapters  might  be  dropped  out 
and  the  record  would  seem  to  be  complete, 
just  at  that  point,  without  the  account  of  Ba- 
laam. To  the  critics  ^this  is  all-sufficient 
ground  for  declaring  it  of  a  later  and  different 
source.  But  if  the  episode  occurred  then  and 
there,  the  history  is  not  complete  without  it. 
Moreover,  while  the  record  from  chapter  xxi. 
to  XXV.  would  seem  unbroken,  if  the  interven- 
ing section  was  dropped,  still  we  would  be  at 
a  loss  to  understanl  the  references  to  Balaam 
in  chapter  xxxi ,  unless  we  had  this  record. 
As  to  how  Moses  secored  the  material,  we 
find  in  chapter   xxxi.   that   Balaam  was  slain 


74  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

among  the  Midianites  and  his  effects  cap- 
tured. It  is  by  DO  means  an  unnatural  suppo 
pition  that  in  this  way  Moses  came  into  pos 
session  of  the  facts,  without  having  a  special 
revelation.  Very  naturally  the  style  and  lit- 
erary finish  would  be  different  when  the 
writer  turned  from  journalistic  annals  to  such 
atheme,  which  must  have  thrilled  his  soul  with 
its  vision  of  the  guidance  of  Israel's  God.  It 
must  not  be  overlooked  that  the  nations  par- 
ticularly mentioned  in  Balaam's  prophecy  be- 
long to  the  Mosaic  period.  The  Kenites  later 
disappear  entirely.  Reference  to  Agag  in 
xxiv.  7  does  not,  as  claimed,  necessarily  point 
to  the  time  of  Saul,  because  it  is  proved  to 
have  been  the  standing  title  of  the  Amalekite 
princes,  as  Pharoah  among  Egyptians,  or  Cae- 
sar among  Romans. 

We  must  now  refer  to  the  positive  evidences 
of  Mosaic  authorship.  The  minute  touches 
here  and  there  point  to  a  writer  who  had  lived 
through  it  all,  as  in  xi.  5.  Some  of  the  pas- 
sages clearly  belong  to  the  Mosaic  age  Bleek 
cdnced  s  chapters  i  ii  iii.  iv.  xix,,  and  parts 
of  vi.  X  xxi  and  xxxiii.  Ewald  agrees  largely 
with  thisi,  and  adds  par^s  of  x.  and  xx.,  frankly 


The  Book  of  Numbers.  75 

admitting  that  "at  a  much  later  period  they 
could  not  have  been  attempted."  Concerning 
the  camping-stations  in  xxxiii  ,  there  is  almost 
unanimous  consent  in  attributing  it  to  Moses 
As  to  the  songs  in  xxi.,  Bleek,  in  his  Introduc- 
tion, says:  "It  is  so  absolutely  against  all 
probability  tha*:  they  should  be  the  produc- 
tion of  a  later  age  that  DeWette  ha'^  acknowl- 
edged them  to  be  of  the  age  of  Moses.  If  we 
tiad  here  songs  which  do  not  contain  any  ref 
ereace  at  all  to  the  circumstances  of  a  later 
time,  but  are,  on  the  contrary,  full  of  features 
of  individuality  which  are  not  otherwise  in- 
telligible, and  are  without  meaning  except  in 
reference  to  circumstances  in  the  time  of 
Moseg,  it  becomes  highly  probable  that  thoy 
were  not  only  composed  in  the  Mosaic  age,  but 
that  they  were  then  written  down,  and  have 
come  down  to  us  from  thence."  We  also  have 
in  this  book  the  evidence  of  intimate  acquaint 
ance  with  Egypt,  as  xiii.  22.  A  striking  in- 
stance of  the^e  Mosaic  traces  is  found  in  the 
reference  to  the  boundary  of  the  land  The 
men  don  of  the  Arnon  as  the  boundary  be 
tween  Moab  and  the  Amorites  indicates  a 
record  written  while  the  Israelitish  army  was 


76  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch, 


still  on  the  south  bank  of  the  river.  Then  the 
fact  that  the  boundaries  mentioned  in  xxxiv. 
do  not  exactly  correspond  with  the  land  ac 
tually  occupied  clearly  points  to  this  chapter 
as  written  before  the  entrance  into  Canaan, 
for  no  later  writer,  after  Israel  failed  to  occupy 
all  the  land,  would  ascribe  to  them  land  which 
they  did  not  possess. 

The  subject  of  possible  interpolations  at  a 
later  date  is  naturally  8ugf];ested  in  this  study, 
for  several  instances  are  asserted  to  be  found 
in  Numbers.  The  idea  that  Moses  wrote  the 
Pentateuch  verbatim  as  we  have  it  is  not  to  be 
defended,  and,  of  course,  need  not  be.  It  is 
reasonably  certain  that  he  used  materials 
which  were  at  hand,  and  it  is  also  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  occasionally  interpolations 
have  found  their  way  into  the  text  in  later 
years.  The  burden  of  evidence  indicates  that 
the  Old  Testament  oanon  received  its  perma- 
nent form  during  the  Persian  period  in  the 
years  extending  from  Ezra  to  Nehemiah.  The 
transmission  of  the  Mosaic  writings  for  a 
thousand  years  by  copyists  in  the  schools  of 
the  prophets  and  elsewhere,  would,  not  un- 
naturally, involve   occasional  marginal    com- 


The  Book  of  Xumbtrs.  77 


nients  by  the  copyists,  which  comments  would 
gradually  creep  into  the  body  of  the  text. 
There  were  inspired  men  whom  we  may  be- 
lieve to  have  been  moved  at  times  to  make 
8uoh  additions  In  chapter  xii.  3,  we  have  an  - 
instance  in  point.  In  chapter  xv.,  verse  32 
indicates  that  the  incident  mentioned  was 
recorded  after  the  wilderness  journey,  quire 
likely  by  Joshua  who  also  probably  wrote  the 
account  of  the  death  of  Moses  at  the  close  of 
Deuteronomy.  (Jjsh.  xxiv.  26  )  All  such  in- 
terpolations do  not  impeach  the  Mosaic  au- 
thorship, and  are  entirely  consistent  with  the 
belief  that  the  whole  was  guarded  by  the  Holy 
Spirit. 


XI.— The  Book  of  Deuteronomy. 

,  The  application  of  the  name  Deuteronomy 
to  the  fifth  book  of  the  Pentateuch  is  some- 
what misleading,  as  it  is  apt  to  suggest  that 
we  have  here  either  a  second  code  of  laws  or 
a  recapitulation  of  laws  already  given,  where- 
as it  is  rather^  summary  of  the  most  salient 
features  of  Jehovah's  dealings  with  Israel  and 
th9  comtnandments  whose  observance  was  of 
supreme  importance  when  they  were  settled 
in  the  promised  land.  Miny  parts  of  the  law 
already  given  are  not  mentioned,  and  few  new 
laws  are  given.  It  U  the  personal  and  eth- 
ical rather  than  the  pDlitical  and  official  as- 
pect of  the  law  that  is  dwelt  upon.  In  fact, 
the  book  c:)nsi3ts  ot  a  series  of  sermons,  hav- 
ing historical  and  legislative  features,  but  be- 
iog  especially  hortatory  and  revealing  the  sub- 
jective spirit  of  the  author.  This  latter  fea- 
ture is  in  contrast  to  the  previous  books,  in 
which  the  objective  element  prevails.  The 
admonitions,  appeals  and  warnings  of  Moses 
(78) 


TJie  Book  of  Deutctonomy.  79 

are  enforced  bj  constant  references  to  the  his- 
tory and  law  of  which  thej  knew  and  pos- 
sessed the  records.  The  book  closes  with 
soaie  account  of  the  last  days  of  Moses'  li^e. 

We  noted  in  Chapter  V.  that  this  book  has 
more  direct  references  to  Mosaic  authorship 
than  t^e  other  four.  But  the  critica  say  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  believe  that  Moses  could 
be  the  author,  because  there  is  such  a  marked 
difference  of  style  from  that  found  in  the  frag- 
ments which  they  concede  to  be  Mosaic,  and 
because  we  have  here  many  of  the  same 
grounds  for  objection  which  they  make  against 
the  Mosaic  authorship  of  most  of  the  Penta- 
teuch in  any  part  of  it.  When  we  ask  the 
critics  how  we  can  set  aside  the  direct  testi- 
mony of  the  book  itself,  they  are  ready  with 
the  answer.  It  is  the  only  answer  possible  to 
them,  and  it  reveals  their  desperate  determi- 
nation to  push  their  theory  against  all  oids. 
They  boldly  tell  us  that  the  author  of  this  book 
perpetrated  a  deliberate  forgery,  and  assumed 
the  name  of  Moses  to  give  a  color  of  coneist- 
enoy  to  his  work.  Of  course  they  do  this  with 
soft  words  and  tell  us  that  notions  of  literary 
property  were  not  very  strict  at  that  early 


8o  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

day,    and   that   such   fictions    were    common 
among  conscientious  men. 

But  we  ask  the  name  of  this  forger  who 
foisted  his  fraud  upon  Israel  at  some  later 
date,  and  we  are  tdld  it  was  the  prophet  Jer- 
emiah I  Think  of  this  man  of  God,  this 
preacher  of  righteousness,  being  accused  of 
writing  this  book  himself,  or  conniving  with 
his  cousin  Hilkiah,  and  giving  it  forth  as  the 
book  of  the  law  found  in  the  temple,  accused 
of  deliberately  lending  himself  to  falsehood 
and  practicing  an  imposition  upon  the  people 
in  the  name  of  God!  This  reproach  which 
the  critics  cast  upon  the  character  of  Jere- 
miah should  bring  shame  to  their  cheeks  and 
hot  indignation  from  the  heart  of  every  lover 
of  God's  word.  It  is  true  that  the  writings  of 
Jeremiah  are  marked  by  numerous  and  strik- 
ing resemblances  to  passages  in  Deuteronomy, 
As  a  priest,  Jeremiah  would  be  occupied  from 
his  jouth  in  the  study  of  the  law,  and,  when 
called  to  admonish  Israel,  nothing  could  have 
been  more  natural  than  to  draw  largely  from 
these  discourses  of  Moses.  There  are  fre- 
quent quotations  in  Jeremiah  from  other  books 
of   the    Pentateuch.     Moreover,  it    must  be 


The  Book  of  Deuteronomy.  8  r 


noted  that  the  agreements  between  Deuteron- 
omy and  Jeremiah  are  not  so  many  as  their 
differences,  both  in  peculiarities  of  words  and. 
in  much  of  the  sentiment. 

A  part  of  this  invention  of  the  critics  in- 
volves the  notion  that  the  book  of  the  law 
which  Bilkiah  found  in  the  temple  during  the 
reign  of  Josiah  was  not  the  entire  Penta'euch, 
but  simply  Deuteronomy.  But  it  is  also  called 
the  book  of  the  covenant,  which  identifies  it 
with  Exodus.  The  reasons  given  by  the  crit- 
ics for  their  theory  are  quiie  insufficient. 
They  say  if  the  \^ji  had  existed  before  this 
time,  it  is  inconceivable  that  it  should  have 
been  lost  as  the  record  intimates.  But  the 
deplorable  idolatry  that  prevailed  during  the 
reigQs  of  Manasseh  and  Amon,  extending 
through  half  a  century,  is  all-sufficient  expla,- 
nation  of  the  fact  that  the  Pentateuch  was 
neglected  and  ignored  and  actually  unknown, 
except  in  the  ranks  of  the  few  faithful  of  the 
class  of  Jeremiah.  Then  they  say  the  whole 
book  could  not  have  been  read  through  in 
one  day.  But  it  is  an  assumption  to  assert 
that  it  was  all  read  in  one  day.  Last  of  all, 
the  critics  say  that  it  is  suspicious  to  have  the 


82  Moses  and  the  Fcniateiich. 

book  foun  i  j  ast  at  the  lime  when  it  was  needed 
to  assist  the  plans  of  the  reformers,  and  that 
this  coincidence  points  to  the  inference  that  the 
reformers  made  the  book  to  suit  the  occasion  I 
It  is  amazing  beyond  credence!  Divine  prov- 
idence counts  for  nothing  The  religious  en- 
thusiasm and  revival  that  marked  Josiah  s 
reign  are  not  sufficient  explanation  for  them.  A 
time  must  be  found  for  the  later  authorship  of 
Deuteronomy,  or  the  theory  of  the  critics  will 
fail,  and  Jeremiah  must  be  loaded  with  this 
charge  of  imposture,  while  his  character  as 
a  prophet  is  impugned  For  if  he  could  de- 
clare as  from  Moses  what  was  his  own,  why 
should  he  not  declare  as  from  God  what  was 
simply  his  own?  The  critics  who  are  anxious 
to  minimize  predictive  prophecy  will  thick 
this  a  very  small  matter;  but  it  will  not  be  so 
regarded  by  all  who  believe  the  prophet  to  be 
the  medium  of  communication  between  God 
and  man. 

One  of  the  fundamental  errors  of  the  ration- 
alistic critics  is  in  urging  that  the  non-execu- 
tion of  a  law  proves  that  it  did  not  exist.  The 
critics  seem  to  have  forgotten  the  dark  ages  of 
Europe  previous  to  the  Reformation  Their 
argument  would  prove  that  the  New  Testa- 


Tfie  Book  of  DcH.'en  fioiny.  8 


ment  did  not  exist  in  ittj  present  form,  until 
Luther  found  a  copy  of  it  in  a  monastery 
library.  Certainly  the  New  ToFtameiit  was 
largely  forgotten  and  unknown,  though  it  had 
been  in  existence  more  than  a  thousand  years. 
The  arguments  of  the  critics  would  ^.Tove 
Luther  the  author  of  the  epistles  to  the  Gala- 
tians  and  the  Ramans,  But  the  non  observ- 
ance of  the  teachings  of  Christ  fails  to  prove 
their  non-existence.  We  are  too  near  to  them 
for  that.  The  critics  are  dogmatic  about  the 
Old  Testament,  though  they  build  largely  on 
conjectures.  There  were  rationalistic  critics 
who  tried  to  disprove  the  historic  authentic- 
ity of  the  New  Testament  Gospels,  but  they 
could  not  explain  the  figure  of  the  apobtle 
Paul  going  up  and  down  the  coasts  of  the  Med- 
iterranean founding  churches  and  filling  them 
with  a  faith  that  lifted  heathenism  off  its 
hinges,  and  turned  the  faces  of  Christian  na- 
tions yet  unbDrn  toward  the  light  .Just  so  the 
historic  figure  of  Moses  moves  through  the  at- 
mosphere of  Old  Testament  history.  It  is  a 
^on-iistent  living  portrait  that  could  never 
have  been  patched  together  by  hap  hazard 
hands.  That  portrait  is  possible  only  when 
painted    from   life. 


84  Moses_  and  the  Pentateuch . 

The  critics  also  assert  that  Deuteronomy 
contains  several  passages  which  point  to  a 
later  origin.  As  in  the  preceding  book^, 
these  passages  permit  of  reasonable  explana 
tions.  For  instance,  it  is  urged  that  the  ex 
pression  "beyond  the  Jordan"  plainly  indi- 
cates that  the  writer  was  on  the  west  bank  of 
the  river.  But  this  expression  was  the  actual 
term  given  to  that  territory,  and  it  could  have 
been  used  just  as  Cassar  could  write  of  Trans- 
alpine Gaul  without  being  south  of  the  Alps. 
Moreover,  in  a  few  instances  there  might  have 
been  interpolations. 

We  should  note  a  few  of  the  positive  evi- 
dences of  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  Deuteron 
omy.  The  aspect  and  attitude  of  the  writer, 
both  retrospective  and  prospective,  are  those 
of  one  in  the  position  of  Moses  at  the  time  im- 
mediately before  the  entrance  of  the  Israel- 
ites into  Canaan.  There  is  not  a  hint  of  Je- 
rusalem, or  the  temple,  or  the  later  life  in  the 
land.  The  principal  foes  are  the  Canaanites, 
who  disappear  from  the  record  in  the  time  of 
the  judges.  The  vivid  reminiscences  of 
Egypt  and  experiences  there  as  of  recent  oc- 
currence point  to  Moses.  Such  a  statement  as 
that  in  chapter  iv.  3,  4,  is  intelligible  only  as 


The  Book  of  Deuteronomy.  85 

8poken  to  those  who  witnessed  the  incident 
mentioned.  Moreover,  we  have  fre([uent  ref- 
erences in  the  earlier  prophets.  Those  found 
in  Amos  and  Rosea  are  especially  significant 
because  they  were  prophets  of  Israel  rather 
than  of  Judah;  for  this  fact  indicates  that  the 
ten  tribes  recognized  and  reverenced  the  Pen- 
tateuch before  the  separation.  But  evidently 
it  could  not  have  attained  to  universal  accept- 
ance had  it  not  been  by  long  usage  already  es- 
tablished. In  the  Book  of  Kings  we  have  ref- 
erences which  prove  that  the  book  was  known 
in  the  kingdom  of  Israel  from  the  time  of  its 
establishment.  Hengstenberg  calls  attention 
to  the  important  fact  that  "the  entire  action 
and  operation  of  the  prophets  in  the  kingdom 
of  Israel  is  an  inexplicable  riddle  it  we  do  not 
assume  the  public  recognition  of  the  Penta- 
teuch in  this  kingdom  as  its  basis."  He  pro- 
ceeds to  show  how  the  prophets,  though  very 
annoying  to  the  kings  at  times,  were  ever  rec- 
ognized as  having  a  certain  authority,  which 
can  only  be  explained  by  the  existence  of  the 
laws  on  which  they  grounded  their  censures 
of  kings  and  people,  standing  as  messengers  of 
Jehovah  and  preachers  of  righteousness. 


XII.— The  Book  of  Joshua  and  the  Term 
"Hexateuch." 

The  Jews  were  accustomed  to  separate  the 
Book  of  Joshua  from  the  Pentateuch.  The 
five  books  of  Moses  composed  what  they  called 
the  law.  Joshua  was  grouped  with  Judges, 
Samuel  and  the  Kings,  composing  the  books 
known  as  the  "Former  Prophets."  Evidenily 
this  division  has  its  primary  explanation  in 
the  fact  that  Moses  was  identified  in  the  Jew- 
ish mind  with  the  Pentateuch  The  fact  that 
the  contents  of  Joshua  had  a  close  connection 
with  the  preceding  record  wa?  no  doubt  fully 
recognized  by  the  people,  but  more  conspicuous 
than  this  relationship  was  the  fact  that  the  age 
of  Moses  staads  out  as  peculiarly  the  age  of 
the  authoritative  establishment  of  the  people 
under  the  divine  institutions  received  at  the 
hand  of  their  great  lawgiver.  Considered 
from  another  point  of  view,  the  Book  of  Josh  la 
miy  properly  be  grouped  with  the  Pentateuch, 
rather  than  the  succeeding  records.  As  a 
(  86  ) 


The  Book  of  Joshua.  87 

portion  of  the  history,  it  fills  out  the  account 
of  ths  sefctlement  in  the  promised  land,  and  if 
added  to  the  five  preceding  books  would  make 
a  group  of  six.  It  is  because  of  this  mode  of 
grouping  that  we  have  the  term  "Hexateuch," 
the  six  books  composing  what  is  frequently 
called  the  Book  of  Origins. 

As  might  be  expected,  the  Book  of  Joshua 
abounds  in  references  to  the  law  of  Moses 
and  to  the  instructions  which  he  gave  to  Joshua 
as  his  divinely  appointed  successor  in  the  work 
of  completing  the  conquest  and  8efctlem<mt  of 
the  land,  and  establishing  among  the  people 
of  Isra'jl  the  worship  and  the  laws  of  God. 
8o  completely  is  the  book  thus  identified  with 
the  preceding  records  that  the.  critics  have 
been  forced  to  the  necessity  of  asserting  that 
it  also  is  of  later  origin  and  thit  it  bears  the 
same  traces  of  composite  structure  which 
they  «laim  to  find  in  the  Pentateuch.  The 
salvation  of  the  theory  of  the  critics  depends 
upon  this  disposition  of  Joshua,  and  the 
grmping  which  puts  the  six  books  together 
hascDm^  maialy  through  this  claim  that  all 
six  are  of  a  later  date  than  that  assigned  to 
them  by   tradition.     As   this    claim  bears   a 


SS  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 


manifest  relation  to  the  Pentateuchal  problem, 
it  calls  for  brief  consideration  here. 

Arguments  akin  to  those  already  mentioned 
in  the  preceding  chapters  are  offered  by  the 
critics  to  prove  the  later  date  of  the  Book  of 
Joshua.  For  instance,  it  is  urged  that  2  Sam. 
i.  18  teaches  that  the  Book  of  Joshua  was  not 
written  earlier  than  the  time  of  David,  and, 
therefore,  the  mention  of  this  book  in  Joshua 
is  proof  that  Joshua  also  was  not  written 
earlier  than  David's  time.  But  there  is  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Book  of  Jasher  was  a  col- 
lection of  national  ballads,  which  received  ad- 
ditions from  time  to  time.  In  Josh.  x.  13  the 
Syriac  version  calls  it  the  Book  of  Canticles, 
and  ^understands  it  to  be  a  book  of  songs 
commemorative  of  the  brave  deeds  of  Israel- 
ite heroes.  Jasher  literally  means  "upright," 
and  the  name  would  be  equivalent  to  the 
"Hero  Book"  of  the  nation.  There  are  clear 
intimations  to  justify  this  explanation,  and  so 
we  find  reasonable  explanations  from  first  to 
last  of  the  various  discrepancies  and  traces  of 
a  later  date  which  the  critics  claim  to  have 
found.  An  occasional  instance  may  reasonably 
suggest    an    interpolation    or    inaccuracy   hi 


The  Book  of  Joshua.  89 


transmission;  but  the  substantial  integrity  of 
this  book,  as  of  the  Pentateuch,  remains  vin- 
dicated by  the  scholarly  opponents  of  the 
critics. 

More  serious  are  the  charges  that  the  Deu- 
teronomist  embodied  the  references  to  his  own 
work  in  the  Book  of  Joshua  in  order  to  facili 
tate  the  reception  of  his  pretended  laws  of 
Moses.  We  might  ask  why  he  did  n")t  intro- 
duce more  of  them,  had  this  been  his  purpose; 
but  we  are  concerned  about  the  vicious,  repel 
lant  character  of  the  theory  whi3h  would 
build  up  the  word  of  God  upon  a  substratum 
of  deliberate  subtle  deception.  It  is  scarcely 
credible  that  evangelical  Christians  can  calm 
ly  champion  a  theory  which  claims  that  the 
men  who  were  "moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost," 
the  Spirit  of  truth,  were  dominated  at  the 
same  time  by  a  cunning  spirit  of  fraud  and 
deception  Equally  destructive  of  our  faith 
in  predictive  prophecy  is  the  assertion  that  the 
statement  in  vi.  26  is  not  the  record  of  an  ut- 
terance by  Joshua,  but  only  the  invention  of  a 
prophecy  after  its  supposed  fultillment,  as 
recorded  in  1  Kings  xvi  34.  This  is  what  Dr. 
Davidson  fells  us,  and  he  simply  makes  the 


90  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

supposed  later  writer  a  designing  imposter, 
who  iatended  to  palm  off  his  work  as  of  an 
earlier  d&.te,  but  who  has  been  caught  in  his 
trickery  by  the  astute,  scientific  research  of 
the  critics.  But  what  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  Spirit  of  the  living  God  in  all  this  making 
of  his  Holy  Word? 

Against  these  destructive  views,  we  have  in 
this  book  also  the  clear  traces  of  its  early  au- 
thorship. Joshua  may  have  furnished  some 
of  its  data  in  his  records,  and  the  facts  that 
follow  indicate  that  the  book  was  written  not 
many  years  after  his  death.  There  is  an  en- 
tire absence  of  any  allusion  to  the  later  con- 
dition of  Israel.  The  statement  in  xv.  63 
points  to  a  time  before  David,  and  that  in  ix. 
27  shows  that  the  place  had  not  yet  been 
chosen  for  the  permanent  altar  of  the  Lord. 
The  reference  to  the  Canaanites  in  Gezer  in 
xvi.  10  could  not  have  been  used  after  the 
time  of  Othniel,  Moreover,  when  we  turn  to 
verbal  criticism,  we  find  the  critics  passing 
over  phenomena  which  are  quite  too  important 
to  be  ignored.  In  the  Pentateuch  there  is  but 
OES  form  of  the  masculine  and  feminine  of 
the  personal  pronoun  of  the  third  person.  The 


The  B^ok  of  Joshua. 


feminiDe  form  first  appears  in  Joshua.  It  is  a 
striking  instance  of  the  gradual  development 
of  the  inflexions  of  a  language.  So  the  archaic 
form  ot  the  pre  noun  "these"  is  frequent  in  the 
Pentateu3h,  but  does  not  appear  in  J(  shua. 
We  may  also  ask,  if  the  same  redactor  gave  us 
the  six  books  of  the  Hexateuch,  why  he  al- 
ways used  a  shorter  form  of  "Jericho"  in  the 
Pentateuch  and  the  fuller  form  in  Joshua. 
We  could  multiply  such  evidences  that  the 
Book  of  Joshua  has  not  come  to  us  from  the 
same  hand  that  gave  us  the  Pentateuch,  but 
that  it  vv^as  vrritten  not  many  years  later 
than  the  Pentateuch  by  one  who  was  entirely 
familiar  with  the  contents  of  the  books  of 
Moses  and  the  historic  details  of  the  settle- 
ment in  the  land  of  Canaan. 

The  importance  of  this  evidence  is  manifest. 
Since  the  critics  fail  to  identify  the  author- 
ship of  Joshua  with  that  of  the  Pentateuch, 
the  keystone  has  failed  from  their  arch,  lor 
Joshua  makes  necessary  the  previous  exist- 
ence of  the  Pentateuch  The  Jewish  rabbis 
were  quite  as  capable  Hebraists  as  the  modern 
critics.  They  realized  that  from  the  etand- 
point  of  literary  criticism  a   line   was  to   be 


92  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 


drawn  between  Joshua  and  the  books  of 
Moees.  They  had  a  Pentateuch  instead  of  a 
Hexateuch  because  of  more  fundamental 
points  of  separation  than  agreement.  The 
historic  connection  has  a  continuous  flow 
through  all  of  the  Scriptures.  Above  all  is 
there  the  manifest  power  of  the  Spirit  breath- 
ing upon  the  Word,  and  any  theory  which 
would  simply  vitiate  the  purpose  and  charac- 
ter of  inspiration  is  inevitably  doomed  to  fail 
of  recognition  in  the  evangelical  ranks  of  the 
follov^ers  of  Jesus  Christ. 


XIII.  -  A  Word  About  Alleged  Errors  and 
Existing  Discrepancies. 

The  evangelical  Christian  Church  looks 
upon  Holy  Scripture  as  the  word  of  God 
written.  In  2  Peter  i.  19-21,  we  are  taught 
that  'we  have  also  a  more  sure  word  of  proph- 
ecy; whereunto  ye  do  well  that  ye  take  heed, 
as  unto  a  light  that  shineth  in  a  dark  place, 
....  knowing  this  first,  that  no  prophecy  of 
the  Scripture  is  of  any  private  interpretation. 
For  the  prophecy  came  not  in  the  old  time  by 
the  will  of  man;  but  holy  men  of  God  spake  as 
they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost."  We 
also  have  Paul  writing,  in  2  Tim.  iii.  16,  that 
"all  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God, 
and  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness." 
Both  of  these  passages  refer  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writings,  and  therefore  they  apply  to  the 
Pentateuch.  In  the  light  of  these  words  of 
inspiration  we  approach  the  consideration  of 
the  subject  of  this  chapter. 
(  '.'3  ) 


94  Moss  and  J  he  refilalciich. 

We  all  understand  that  the  writers  of 
Scripture,  while  they  were  inspired  of  God, 
were  also  marked  by  the  conditions  and  limi- 
tations of  humanity.  Every  divine  revelation 
has  been  a  manifestation  or  communication 
which  has  borne  distinctive  evidence  of  being 
accommodated  to  the  finite  weaknesses  of 
men.  We  are  not  surprised,  therefore,  by  the 
fact  that  after  being  transmitted  by  human 
copyists  through  centuries,  the  Scriptures  con- 
tain discrepancies  in  the  text.  Indeed,  when 
W3  consider  the  circumstan<3es,  and  find  that 
these  discrepancies  are  very  few  and  nowhere 
touch  the  vital  truth  of  the  Word,  we  can  not 
but  believe  that  God  has  directly  aided  man  in 
the  task  of  perpetuating  the  integrity  of  the 
Scriptures,  "and  by  his  singular  care  and  prov- 
idence, has  kept  them  pure  in  all  ages."  The 
writer  is  of  those  who  believe  the  existing  dis- 
crepancies may  be  fairly  and  fully  accounted 
for  by  the  theory  that  they  are  due  to  mistakes 
made  by  the  copyists. 

In  recent  years  a  discussion  has  arisen 
touching  this  question  of  the  discrepancies 
which  exist  in  the  various  texts  which  we  pos- 
sess.   Most  students  of  Scripture  explain  them 


A  IVord  About  Alleged  Errors.        95 

as  the  writer  has  just  done.  Some,  however, 
contend  that  these  errors  probably  existed  in 
the  original  texts.  The  champions  of  this 
view  are  mainly  the  adherents  of  the  higher 
criticism.  Taken  by  itself,  the  question  is  not 
of  such  serious  character  as  is  sometimes 
urged.  The  validity  of  inspiration  can  not  be 
impugned  by  any  theory  about  the  original 
manuscripts,  because  such  theory  can  not 
carry  us  away  from  the  text  which  we  have. 
The  writer  agrees  with  President  Patton,  who 
says  in  his  monograph  on  inspiration:  '  I 
must  take  exception  to  the  disposition  on  the 
part  of  some  to  stake  the  fortunes  of  Chris- 
t  anity  on  the  doctrine  af  inspiration.  Not 
that  T  yield  to  any  one  in  profound  conviction 
of  the  truth  and  importance  of  the  doctrine." 
Without  admitting  that  the  present  discrepan- 
cies existed  in  the  original  text,  we  need  not 
be  greatly  disturbed  by  the  theory  of  their 
possible  existence.  God  e7idently  deems  the 
Bible  as  we  now  have  it  sufficiently  pure  for 
his  purpose.  Every  day  it  proves  to  be  the 
'wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation.  The  writer  could  believe  it  possi- 
ble that  God  might  have  deemed  sufficiently 


96  Moses  and  the  Pefitaieuch. 

pure  an  origiaal  text  like  unto  the  one  we 
have. 

But  the  dangerous  fact  about  this  theory  is 
that  it  does  not  stand  by  itself.  If  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  writers  of  Scripture  were  not  de- 
nied outright  by  some  of  the  critics,  we  might 
rest  somewhat  complacent  at  the  thought  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  permitted  some  human  imper- 
fections to  appear  in  the  original  texts.  But 
knowing  how  destructive  some  of  the  critics 
would  be,  we  shrink  from  a  theory  that  is 
clearly  a  step  toward  the  naturalistic  views 
which  they  espouse.  The  danger  is  in  the 
tendency  which  this  theory  betrays.  Some 
evangelical  adherents  of  the  higher  criticism 
advocate  a  middle  ground  that  mediates  be- 
tween the  destructive  rationalism  of  the  ex- 
treme critics  and  those  who  hold  to  what  they 
call  the  "ironclad  dogma  of  verbal  inspiration 
and  literalistic  infallibility."  But  we  answer 
that  the  situation  does  not  demand  such  a  mid- 
dle ground.  We  believe,  with  Prof  W.  J. 
Beecher,  that  the  evangelical  critics  are  mak- 
ing unnecessary  concessions  to  the  rational 
ists.  We  agree  with  Dr.  S.  J.  McPherson's 
comraent    concerning   the    writer's     beloved 


A  Word  About  Alleged  Errors.         9  7 

teacher,  Prof.  H.  P.  Smith:  "He  held  that, 
while  believing  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of 
Goi  and  the  infallible  a'andard  of  religious 
faith  and  moral  condact,  he  did  not  regard  it 
as  inerrant  on  all  subordinate  matters  of 
science  and  history,  I  do  not  say  thit  he  was 
right  in  that  opinion.  He  may,  and  I  believe 
he  will,  turn  out  to  be  giistaken  in  it  "  Very 
few  Christians  advocate  a  mechanical  theory 
of  inspiration.  The  Scripture  writers  were 
not  merely  pens,  but  penmen.  In  so  far,  we 
stand  this  side  of  the  extreme  ultra  orthodox 
opinions  of  a  few;  but  we  can  not  see  any  fair 
demand  which  would  lead  us  to  take  the  first 
step  toward  naturalism. 

The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  Bible  is 
marked  by  a  guarantee  of  accuracy  in  the 
text  Paul  writes  in  1  Cor.  ii.  12,  13:  "We 
have  received  not  the  spirit  of  the  world,  but 
the  spirit  which  is  of  God;  that  we  might 
know  the  things  which  are  freely  given  us  of 
God,  which  things  also  we  speak,  not  in  the 
words  which  man's  wisdom  teacheth,  but 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth."  Canon 
Farrar  says  that  Paul's  view  of  inspiration  led 
him  to  make 'the  words  of  Scripture  co  ex- 


98  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

tensive  and  identical  with  the  words  of  God'; 
and  that  "the  controversial  use  which  he 
makes  of  Old  Testament  passages  attaches 
consequences  of  the  deepest  importance  to 
what  an  ordinary  reader  might  regard  as  a 
mere  grammatical  expression."  Dr.  Farrar 
cites  in  illustration  the  familiar  instance  in 
Gal.  iii  16,  where  Paul  argues  from  the  singu- 
lar rather  thin  the  plural  form  of  the  word 
"seed"  in  God's  promise  to  Abraham.  So 
when  Christ  said  'It  is  written,"  the  reader 
does  not  distinguish  the  particuUr  utterance 
as  more  accurate  than  any  other,  but  recog- 
nizes the  force  of  the  teaching  to  be  an  en- 
dorsement of  the  divine  authority  that  rests  in 
all  the  Old  Testament  Moreover,  such  ut- 
terances from  our  Lord  as  'the  Scripture  can 
not  be  broken,"  clearly  justify  the  inference 
that  the  slight  discrepancies  that  now  exist 
have  crept  into  the  text,  and  that  the  inspired 
writers  gave  us  the  word  of  God  free  from 
error. 

While  we  have  considered  this  subject  some- 
what in  a  general  way,  we  have  not  forgotten 
its  bearing  upon  our  more  special  study  of 
the  Pentateuch.  The  "thus  saith  the  Lord" 
which  appears  on  page  after  page  in  connec- 


A  Word  About  Alleged  .Errors .        99 

tion  with  the  pereon  of  Moses  as  God  s  spokes- 
man to  Israel,  takes  on  peculiar  sigDificance 
in  the  li^ht  of  the  recognition  \\hich  the  New 
Testament  constantly  gives  to  the  Pentateu 
chal  passages.  For  it  strikes  at  the  very 
heart  of  the  naturalistic  theory  that  denies  a 
substantial  unity  to  the  Mosaic  writings,  and 
would  have  us  believe  the  present  form  of  the 
book  to  be  a  compilation  ot  fragments  and 
documents  edited  long  years  after  Moses,  but 
in  his  name.  The  spirit  of  "pious  fraud" 
which  the  critics  must  advocate  to  save  their 
assumption  is  strangely  at  variance  with  the 
frank,  clear,  unsuspecting  view  which  the 
God-iu spired  men  of  the  Bible  had  of  Moses 
and  his  book.  Dr.  J.  J.  Lampe  makes  a  fair 
argument  when  he  says:  "It  is  "well  to  notice, 
as  a  mosG  eloquent  testimony  to  the  literal 
and  complete  iLspiration  of  the  written  word 
of  God,  that  whenever  men  have  taken  this 
book  and  have  spoken  from  it  with  a  'thus 
saith  the  Lord,'  they  have  touched  the  con- 
sciences of  men,  led  them  in  faith  and  repent- 
ance to  ihe  Savior,  turned  the  world  upi^ide 
down,  banished  innumerable  wrongs  and 
falsehoods,  and  renewed  human  society  in  a 
life  of  moral  and  spiritual  beauty." 


XIV,— Christ  and  the  Critics. 

What  was  the  opinion  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  concerning  the  Mosaic  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch  ?  His  opinion  ought  to  be  ours 
Any  teaching  concerning  the  Pentateuch 
which  is  inconsistent  with  the  divine  instruc 
tit)n  of  Christ  must  be  unhistoric  and  unscieri- 
tific,  as  it  is  unscriptural.  Moses  is  named 
eighty  times  in  the  New  Testament,  twenty- 
four  times  as  the  author,  amd  fifteen  times  as 
the  writer  of  the  whole  or  a  part  of  the  law. 
We  shall  note  especially  Christ's  own  words. 
In  Matt.  XV.  1-9,  and  Mark  vii.  1-13  we  have 
the  fifth  commandment  and  the  law  which 
sentenced  to  death  the  man  who  cursed  his 
parents  ascribed  indiflferently  to  God  and  to 
Moses,  and  put  in  opposition  to  the  command- 
ments of  men  which  had  grown  up  by  a  course 
of  traditions.  ISo  in  Matt  xxii.,  where  the 
Sadducees  were  attempting  to  puzzle  our 
Lord  about  the  resurrection,  Jesus  said  to 
them:  "As  touching  the  resurrection  of  the 
(  100  ) 


Christ  and  the  Critics.  loi 


dead,  have  ye  not  read  that  which  was  spoken 
unto  you  by  God,  saying,"  eto. ;  or,  as  in  Mark, 
'Have  ye  not  read  in  the  book  of  Moses;"  or, 
as  in  Luke,  "That  the  dead  are  raised,  even 
Moses  showed  at  the  bush,  when  he  calleth 
the  Lord,"  etc.,  all  three  quoting  from  Exod. 
iii.  6. 

So  we  might  multiply  references.  Our  con- 
cern, however,  is  with  the  theory  by  which 
the  critics  would  explain  away  the  natural 
conviction  that  Christ  meant  exactly  what  he 
said  in  these  references  to  Moses.  They  tell 
us  that  the  Pentateuch  was  commonly  referred 
to  as  "Moses,"  just  as  the  Psalms  were  known 
as  "David."  This  of  course  is  true,  but  when 
the  critics  tell  us  we  have  no  more  right  to 
identify  Moses  with  the  Pentateuch  than  we 
have  to  identify  David  with  the  Psalms,  we 
deny  the  statement  very  earnestly.  We  do 
this  not  only  because  the  Scriptures  identify 
Moses  with  the  Pentateuch  far  more  spe- 
cially than  they  identify  David  with  the 
Psalms,  but  also  because  the  substantial  Mo- 
saic authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  is  a  far 
more  important  matter  than  the  Davidic  au- 
thorship of  the  Psalms.     It  is  true  that  we  do 


I02  Moses  and  the  fe?ifaieuch. 

not  know  who  wrote  certain  Old  Testament 
books,  and  that  we  are  satisfied  to  rest  in  the 
fact  that  some  man  was  inspired  of  God  to  do 
it.  But  it  is  not  a  parallel  case  which  we 
have  in  considering  the  authorship  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, for  here  we  face  the  necessity  of 
identifying  the  divine  authority  of  fne  insti- 
tutions of  Israel  with  their  origin.  There  is 
a  vast  distinction  to  be  made  between  a  col- 
lection of  inspired  devotional  poetry,  some 
parts  of  which  may  be  anonymous,  and  the 
authoritative  history  of  God's  covenant  rela- 
tion to  Israel  established  at  the  hand  of  a  man 
divinely  chosen  and  prepared  to  elaborate  its 
condition  and  laws  as  a  State. 

The  explanation  which  the  critics  give  of 
Christ's  attitude  toward  the  Pentateuch  viti- 
ates the  claim  of  Christ  to  be  an  authoritative 
teacher  of  infallible  truth.  They  tell  us  that 
our  Lord  simply  accomaiodated  himself  to  the 
accepted  notions  of  this  time;  that  he  was  not 
here  to  teach  higher  criticism;  that  he  quoted 
from  the  Pentateuchal  books,  as  a  saying  of 
Moses,  without  meaning  to  affirm  that  they 
were  actually  written  by  him,  but  merely  be- 
cause these  books  were  generally  attributed 


Christ  and  the  Critics.  1 03 

to  him.  They  tell  us  that  Christ's  concern 
was  simply  about  the  passage  quoted,  rather 
than  about;  its  author.  But  in  our  Lord's  cita- 
tions from  the  book  of  Moses,  the  point  of 
vital  importance  is  not  primarily  in  the  Ian 
guage  of  the  passage,  but  in  the  authority  of  the 
utterance.  It  was  essential  to  the  validity  of 
his  argument  that  this  citation  should  be  from 
none  other  than  Moses.  His  appeal  is  to  the 
authoritative  lawgiver  of  Israel.  It  is  true 
that  Christ  was  not  given  to  the  literary  crit- 
icism of  the  Scriptures,  but  it  is  no  less  true 
that  he  was  a  teacher  of  the  truth,  and  did 
not  come  to  foster  errors  and  give  theoi  coun 
tenance.  It  is  incredible  that  Christ  couid 
have  ppoken  as  he  did  if  he  knew  that  the 
Pentateuch  was  floated  iato  public  acceptance 
by  being  falsely  imputed  to  Moses  long  years 
after  Moses  lived. 

To  avoid  this  hurtful  conclusion  that  Christ 
in  no  way  referred  to  this  literary  fiction, 
many  of  the  critics  would  have  us  believe  that 
our  Lord  did  no:  know  any  better,  and  actually 
supposed  that  Moses  did  write  the  Pentateuch 
when  in  reality  it  was  the  product  of  a  later 
age,  which  was    falsely    imputed    to  Moses. 


104  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

This  we  are  told  of  him  who  said:  "I  am  the 
light  of  the  world:  he  that  followeth  me  shall 
not  walk  in  darkness;'^  "I  am  the  truth," 
and  of  whom  we  are  told  that  he  '  needed  not 
that  any  should  testify  of  man:  for  he  knew  " 
what  was  in  man."  Several  evangelical  crit- 
ics join  hands  with  the  rationalists  in  this 
view.  It  is  another  step  in  the  naturalistic 
tendency  Dr.  Briggs  says:  "Those  who  un- 
derstand the  doctrine  of  the  humiliation  of 
Christ  and  the  incarnation  of  Christ,  find  no 
more  difficulty  in  supposing  that  Jesus  did  not 
know  th^  author  of  tiie  Pentateuch  than  that 
he  did  not  know  the  day  of  his  own  advent." 
There  is  in  that  statement  evident  reference 
to  the  theory  of  the  Kenosis  which  teaches 
that  in  "emptying  himself  Christ  well-nigh, 
if  not  entirely,  eliminated  the  divine  nature 
from  his  incarnate  person.  Bat  our  symbols 
teach  that  "Christ,  being  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  became  man,  and  so  was,  and  continued 
t)  be,  God  and  man,  in  two  distinct  natures, 
and  one  person,  forever  "  This  definition  of 
the  incarnation  is  squarely  against  the  theory 
of  Christ's  ignorance.  The  advocates  of  this 
theory  build  almost  entirely  on  one  verse  of 


Christ  and  Jic  Critic 


Scripture  (Mark  xiii.  32),  where  Christ  says 
of  the  time  of  his  advent:  Of  that  day  aad 
hour  knoweth  no  man,  no,  not  the  angels 
which  are  in  heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but  the 
Father." 

It  may  well  be  questioned  whether  the  anal- 
ogy of  Christ's  teachings  will  permit  of  such 
an  interpretation  as  to  re([uire  that  this  state- 
ment is  a  confession  of  ignorance  To  "un- 
derstand the  doctrine  of  the  humiliation  of 
Christ  and  the  incarnation  of  Christ, "  as  that 
doctrine  is  clearly  taught  in  the  word  of  God, 
U  to  understand  that  the  God-man  was  very 
God  and  very  man.  As  the  world's  Redeemer, 
Christ's  representative  function  was  twofold. 
He  was  at  once  God's  representative  among 
men  and  man's  representative  before  God. 
When  he  stood  as  God's  representative  before 
men,  he  exercised  every  one  of  the  prerog- 
atives of  his  divine  nature,  commanding  the 
elements,  healing  diseases,  forgiving  sin,  rais- 
ing the  dead,  and  also  speaking  of  past  and 
future  as  one  whose  knowledge  is  omnitjcient. 
When  he  stood  as  man's  representative  before 
God  he  exercised  only  the  prerogatives  of  his 
human  nature.     In  the   economy  of  the  God- 


io6  Moses  arid  the  Pentaieiich. 

head  the  eternal  Son  and  Spirit  are  one  with 
the  Father  in  his  counsels.  The  eternal  Son, 
therefore,  as  God,  knows  the  day  of  his  sec- 
ond coming;,  but  as  the  Christ,  as  the  messen- 
ger from  God  to  men,  he  did  not  possess  this 
item  of  knowledge  in  that  which  he  was  to  re- 
veal from  the  bosom  of  the  Father.  Inter- 
preting this  utterance  by  the  manifest  purpose 
of  Christ  to  be  recognized  as  very  God  in  the 
flesh,  we  must  give  it  this  meaning,  and  hav- 
ing denied  the  validity  of  the  claim  that  Christ 
confessed  ignorance  at  any  point,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  go  farther  and  assert  that  the  theory 
of  his  ignorance  touching  the  very  teachings 
of  Scripture  itself  i>=>  utterly  unworthy  of  the 
Son  of  God,  whose  claim  to  be  the  supreme 
teacher  of  God's  truth  to  men  would  be  well- 
nigh  farcical  were  such  ignorance  ^os^ible. 

This  vicious  theory  involves  not  only  the  in- 
tellectual furnishinff,  but  the  moral  nature  of 
Christ.  The  argument  assumes  that  he  was 
actually  in  error  when  professing  to  teach 
truth.  As  Canon  Liddon  tays:  "Our  Lord 
quotes  Deuteronomy  as  a  work  of  the  highest 
authority  on  the  subject  of  man's  relations 
and  duties  to  God      Yet  we  are  assured  that 


Christ  and  the  Critics.  107 

in  point  of  fact  this  book  wa?  rothing  better 
than  a  pious  forgery  of  the  age  of  Jeremiah,  if 
indeed  it  was  not  a  work  of  that  prophet,  in 
which  he  employed  the  name  and  authority  of 
Moses  as  a  restraint  upon  the  increasing  poly- 
theism of  the  later  years  of  King  Josiah.  .  .  . 
If  Deuteronomy  is  indeed  a  forgery,  Jesus 
Christ  was  not  merely  ignorant  of  a  fact  of 
literary  history.  His  moral  perceptions  were 
at  fault.  Before  us  is  no  mere  question  as  to 
whether  Chriat's  knowledge  was  or  was  not 
limited;  the  question  is,  whether  as  a  matter 
of  fact  he  taught  or  implied  the  truth  of  that 
whi:.h  is  not  true,  and  which  a  finer  moral 
sense  than  his  might  have  seen  to  be  false. 
The  que3tion  is  plainly  whether  he  was  a 
trustworthy  teacher  of  religious  no  less  than 
of  historical  truth.  We  have  words  of  his 
own  which  prove  how  truly  he  made  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  lower  portions  of  his  teaching 
a  preliminary  to  belief  in  the  higher.  'If  I 
have  told  you  earthly  things,  and  ye  believe 
not,  how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  of  heav- 
enly things?'  How  indeed?  If,  when  he  sets 
the  seal  of  his  authority  upon  the  writings  of 
Moses  as  a  whole,  and  upon  the  most  mirac- 


io8  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 


ulous  incidents  which  they  relate  in  detail,  he 
is  really  only  the  uneducated  Jew  who  igno- 
rantly  repeats  and  reflects  the  prejudice  of  a 
barbarous  age,  how  shall  we  be  sure  that 
when  he  reveals  the  character  of  God,  or  the 
precepts  of  the  new  life,  or  the  reality  and  na- 
ture of  the  endless  world,  he  is  really  trust- 
worthy, as  an  authority  to  whom  we  are  pre- 
pared to  cling  in  life  and  in  death?" 

This  keen  and  forcible  statement  reveals  the 
fatal  extreme  to  which  the  logic  of  the  theory 
of  the  critics  must  go.  Kuenen  is  more  de- 
structive still.  In  his  work  on  the  Prophets 
he  says:  "The  exegesis  of  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament  can  not  stand  before  the  tri- 
bunal of  science.  We  must  either  cast  aside 
as  worthless  our  dearly  bought  scientific 
method,  or  must  forever  cease  to  acknowledge 
the  authority  of  the  New  Testament  in  the 
domain  of  the  exegesis  of  the  Old."  That 
means,  according  to  Kuenen,  that  we  have  no 
Christ  and  no  Bible  if  we  go  the  full  length  of 
the  higher  criticism.  Those  of  us,  however, 
who  know  of  God's  salvation  in  Christ  will 
prefer  to  "cast  aside  as  worthless"  much  of 
the  product  of  the  higher  criticism  and  tarn 


CJirisi  and  tJic  Critics.  109 

to  Je8U3  Christ  as  our  infallible  guide  As 
Dr.  Lampe  says:  "He  made  it  very  clear,  not 
only  that  he  had  a  most  minute  and  partic- 
ular knowledge  of  all  the  events  embedded  in 
the  Old  Testament,  and  was  perfectly  familiar 
with  the  very  spirit  which  actuated  such  men 
a^  Abriham,  Noah,  Moses,  David  and  Isaiah — 
he  was  himself  the  subject  of  the  Old  Testament 
theophanies;  commissioned  the  prophets  to 
teach  his  truth  in  preparation  for  his  coming 
and  the  confirmation  of  the  gospel.  They  all 
taught  and  wrote  by  his  Spirit,  and  it  was  a 
part  of  his  mission  to  this  world  to  fulfill 
every  jot  and  tittle  of  all  that  was  written  in 
both  the  law  and  the  prophets.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  believe  that  he  did  not  know  the  time 
and  the  manner  of  producing  the  Old  Testa- 
ment books,  all  of  which  are  so  vitally  con- 
nected with  his  mission." 

The  issue  is  vital  and  fundamental.  We 
must  choose  between  Christ  and  the  critics. 
Do  these  modern  critics  understand  the 
Scriptures  better  than  Christ  underistood 
them?  Think  of  a  theory  that  brings  us  to 
such  a  (juestion  as  this!  Canon  Liddon  aa- 
swers  it  in  these  words:  "The  man  who  sin 


1 1  o  Moses  and  the  Pentateucli. 

cerely  believes  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God,  will 
not  doubt  that  his  every  word  standeth  sure, 
and  that  whatever  has  been  sealed  and  sane 
tioned  by  hi>j  supreme  authority  is  iudepend- 
ent  of,  and  unassailable  by,  the  fallible  judg- 
ment of  his  creatures  concerniDg  it." 


XV.— Concluding  Remarks. 

The  reader  of  the  foregoing  chapters  will 
not  fail  to  realize  that  in  attempting  to  pre- 
sent in  80  brief  a  statement  an  intelligent  idea 
of  the  viewj  which  are  urged  for  and  against 
the  thearie?  of  the  higher  criticism,  the  writer 
has  been  comp-^Ued  to  omit  much  that  might 
have  been  added.  The  purpose  has  not  been 
to  treat  the  subject  comprehensively,  and 
therefore  only  conspicuous  features  have  been 
considered.  The  study  of  the  individual  books 
is  intended  to  bring  out  the  strikiug  points, 
and  in  most  cases  the  instances  selected  are 
among  the  most  prominent  about  which  there 
is  contention.  In  accord  with  this  principle, 
the  Pentateuch  has  been  selected,  rather  than 
other  portions  of  the  Old  Testament,  becaus'j 
its  problem  is  the  most  important.  A  few  re- 
marks should  be  added  in  this  concluding 
chapter. 

Constant  discrimination  should  be  made  be- 
tween   the    legitimate    methods    of    literary 

(  ni  ) 


Jfoses  ani  the  Pentateuch. 


criticism  and  the  unwarranted  assumptions 
tha*;  mark  the  distinctive  departures  of  much 
of  the  hiorher  criticism  Dr.  Brigcrs  says  of 
such  men  ag  Drs.  Green,  Bissell  and  Osgood 
"They  use  the  tools  of  criticism."  This  is  true 
in  that  they  are  masters  in  the  realm  of  the 
accepted  laws  of  criticism  which  all  students 
recogaize,  and  of  which  the  company  of  higher 
critics  has  no  monopoly.  But  when  Dr.  Briggs 
says,  "These  three  Americans  have  not  yet 
won  a  single  scholarly  victory  or  checked  for 
an  instant  the  advance  of  criticism  in  Ameri- 
ca," he  simply  expresses  his  own  opinion. 
Many  will  not  agree  with  him,  It  is  just  be- 
cause these  and  other  leaders  of  the  evangel 
ical  scholarship  have  faithfully  defended  the 
Scriptures  against  the  assaults  of  many  of  the 
critics  that  the  failure  of  the  higher  criticism 
is  becoming  apparent  and  a  reaction  is  setting 
in  against  it,  both  abroad  and  in  this  country. 
The  critics  lay  tha  flittering  unction  to 
their  souls  that  they  are  finding  fjllowers 
among  men  who,  in  reality,  repudiate  their 
claims.  They  mistake  the  toleration  which 
would  secure  liberty  of  scholarship  to  all  who 
h  jld   to    the    essentials    of   faith    in    Jesus 


Concluding  Remarks.  113 

Christ  for  an  endorsement  of  their  views.  Dr. 
Henry  Van  Dyke,  in  a  recent  sermon  on  "Tae 
Bible  As  It  Is,"  gives  expression  to  this  spirit 
of  toleration,  but  says:  "As  yet  I  have  seen 
no  good  reason  for  thinking  that  Moses  was 
not  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch,  although 
there  are  certain  portions  of  it  which  he  could 
hardly  have  written,  for  example  the  account 
of  his  own  death  and  buriil;  and  the  prophe- 
cies of  Isaiah  seem  to  me  to  be  well  enough 
accounted  for  by  the  supposition  of  a  single 
author  with  two  different  styles.  These  opin- 
ions may  be  due  to  ignorance;  but  many  of 
the  conclusions  of  the  higher  criticism  present 
themselves  to  such  literary  judgment  as  I  pos- 
sess, in  the  same  aspect  of  inconclusive  dog- 
matism as  the  theories  of  those  who  WDuld 
persuade  us  that  the  poems  of  Homer  were 
written  by  another  man  of  the  same  name, 
and  that  Francis  Bacon  was  the  author  of 
Shakespeare's  plays."  Nothing  could  be  more 
apt  than  the  expression  'inconclusive  dogma- 
tism" to  describe  so  much  of  the  assumption 
of  the  critics. 

In  science  it  is  necessary  to  demonstration 
that  when  a  law  is  believed  to  be  established 


114        .  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

by  a  sufficiently  wide  induction,  the  process 
should  be  reversed,  and  the  law  being  assuDOied 
true,  must  be  applied  to  known  facts  to  see  if 
the  results  correspond  to  observation.  This 
was  Newton's  method.  But  the  so-called 
scientific  laws  of  the  critics  have  utterly  failed 
to  stand  this  test.  These  methods  applied  to 
historians  like  M>tley  or  Macaulay  would  fail 
to  assign  the  various  portions  of  their  histjry 
to  sources  from  which  they  have  avowedly 
obtained  them.  No  more  would  those  meth- 
ods assign  to  Shakespeare  and  his  contem- 
poraries the  various  portions  of  the  works 
known  to  have  been  written  by  them  in  com- 
mon, as  the  play  of  Henry  VIII.  The  laws  of 
higher  criticism  would  make  it  quite  impos- 
sible for  James  Russell  Lowell  to  have  written 
all  that  we  know  came  from  his  pen.  What 
could  be  more  diverse  in  style,  thought  and  lan- 
guage than 'The  Biglow  Papers'  and  "The  Vi 
sion  of  Sir  Launfal"?  Yet  they  are  from  the 
same  man,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  laws  of 
the  higher  criticism  go  to  pieces  on  this  rock. 
But  if  they  fail  in  the  case  of  authors  whose 
work  we  know,  and  who  wrote  in  our  own 
language,  how  can  they  expect  us   to   accept 


Concluding  Remark. 


them  when  applied  to  writings  centuries  old, 
when  a  thousand  helps  to  a  perfect  explana- 
tion of  all  the  facts  have  irrevocably  perished  ? 
E-pecially  are  we  deterred  from  this  in  the 
case  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  when  the  critics 
assume  to  assure  us  of  instances  of  literary 
fiction  and  deception,  about  which  they  can 
only  be  guessing.  In  fact,  the  growing  reac- 
tion against  these  extreme  critical  assump 
tions  is  simply  the  expression  of  the  demand 
of  true  science. 

Just  here  we  touch  a  vital  consideration.  It 
arises  in  view  of  the  claims  of  the  evangelical 
adherents  of  this  criticism.  They  are  grieved 
because  their  orthodoxy  is  suspected.  They 
claim  to  adopt  the  principles  of  the  higher 
criticism  without  accepting  the  destructive 
conclusions  of  the  extreme  rationalists.  They 
count  themselves  misunderstood  by  many.  It 
is  unfortunate  to  have  Guch  misapprehension 
in  any  quarter.  No  lover  of  the  truth  desires 
to  misjudge  any  man.  The  reason  why  the 
evangelical  critics  do  not  escape  suspicion  is, 
however,  not  far  to  see.  They  do  not  draw 
clean-cut  lines  between  themselves  and  the 
rationalists       They  quote  all  classes  of  critics 


1 1 6  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

01  the  same  page  and  make  no  distinction. 
They  go  part  way  and  betray  tendencies,  which 
to  many  seem  threatening  More  serious  is 
the  fact  that  some  of  them  are  decidedly  near- 
er to  the  rationalists  than  they  were  five  or 
ten  years  ago.  The  drift  seems  to  be  in  that 
direction.  Moreover,  the  extreme  critics  de- 
nounce the  half-way  men  as  holding  an  unten- 
able place.  It  must  follow  that  many  will  look 
with  suspicion  and  fear  upon  the  movement, 
especially  as  the  evangelicals  have  made  un- 
necessary and  unscientific  concessions  to  the 
extremists.  If  any  one  is  to  blame,  it  must 
mainly  be  the  critics  themselves. 

Meantime,  Bible  students  should  bring  not 
only  the  purpose  t(5  demand  demonstration 
rather  '  than  assumption  from  the  specialists, 
but  also  to  bring  open  minds  ready  to  receive 
any  fair  conclusion  which  safe  scholarship 
may  present.  As  has  been  said,  literary  crit- 
icism is  not  to  be  ignored.  It  has  done  mar-- 
velous  things  during  this  century  in  advancing 
a  true  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures.  The  fol 
lowing  statement  from  the  writer's  honored 
and  revered  teacher,  the  late  Dr.  L.  J.  Evans, 
is  to  the  point:    "I  do  not  claim  that  all  move- 


Cofhiii(ii?ig  Remarks. 


ment  has  been  progreBs,  or  that  every  'find' 
has  been  a  gain.  I  am  well  aware  that  in 
biblical  science,  as  in  every  science,  there  are 
rash  speculations,  unproved  hypotheses,  wild 
and  dangerous  vagaries.  Some  corners  of  the 
field  are  full  of  will-o'-the-wisps,  illusive,  un- 
substantial, unsafe,  gleaming,  I  fear,  with  a 
light  that  is  not  from  heaven.  I  have  nothing 
%o  say  in  behalf  of  a  bald  agnostic,  materialistic 
naturalism,  or  of  an  arbitrary,  capricious 
rationalism,  which,  with  a  priori  dogmatism, 
denies  the  supernatural,  belittles  or  expunges 
sin  and  salvation,  eliminates  out  of  history 
God's  revelation  of  himself,  evaporates  out  of 
the  Bible  its  pneumatic  inspiration,  chops  up 
its  contents  into  lifeless  fragments,  and  sweeps 
away  book  after  book  into  the  abyss  of  legend 
and  myth.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are 
conclusions  in  this  field  whieh  all  whose  judg- 
ment is  worth  anything  are  agreed  in  regard- 
ing as  substantially  established.  We  must 
reckon  with  these  facts.  We  must  take  them 
into  the  account.  We  must  assign  them  their 
true  value."  This  graphic  description  of  much 
of  the  higher  crit  cism  only  confirms  what  has 
been  stated  in  the  foregoing  chapters.     As  to 


ii8  Moses  and  the  Pentateuch. 

the  number  of  "established  conclusions,"  all 
will  not  agree,  but  as  to  the  necessity  of  faith- 
ful and  scholarly  consideration  of  all  claims, 
none  will  question. 

This  spirit  of  fair  inquiry  the  writer  has  de- 
sired to  reveal  in  this  brief  statement  ot  the 
subject  from  the  standpoint  of  one  who,  while 
according  recognition  to  the  legitimate  claims 
of  criti;3ism,  is  convinced  that  the  higher  crit- 
ics have  failed  to  eliminate  Moses  from  the 
Pentateuch,  The  reader  will  note  that  this 
has  been  the  point  of  contention.  We  do  not 
doubt  that  Moses  used  materials  which  were 
at  his  hand,  and  therefore  critical  analysis 
ha3  grounds  for  noting  different  sources. 
Moreover,  we  have  not  objected  to  occasional 
interpolations  or  to  a  later  editorial  arrange- 
ment of  the  whole.  But  our  aim  has  been  to 
show  that  the  critics  can  not  maintain  their 
position  in  denying  to  Moses  the  supreme 
place  in  the  substantial  authorship  of  the 
book.  "We  believe  it  to  be  fairly  proved  that 
the  substance  of  the  Pentateuch  must  have 
been  in  existence  from  the  time  of  Moses,  and 
that  much  of  it  points  to  Moses  as  its  author, 
as  to  no  one  else.     The  internal  evidence  of 


Concludijig  Remarks.  1 1 9 

the  Pentateuch  itself,  the  constant  references 
of  later  Scriptures,  the  institutional  \\{%  of 
lerael,  the  corrobora';ion8  of  the  monumentt\ 
and  the  clear  teaching  of  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  all  unite  in  making  a  cumulative  ar- 
gument, which  results  in  conclusive  demonstra- 
tion of  the  substantial  Mosaic  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch. 

It  is  the  writer's  prayerful  hope  that  this 
monograph  may  serve  to  stimulate  somewhat 
the  already  increasing  study  of  the  word  of 
God.  There  are  those  who  love  it  with  every 
fiber  of  every  heart  string,  and  who  are  ready 
to  devote  their  lives  to  the  end  that  it  may  be 
known  and  read  to  the  uttermost  part  of  the 
earth,  as  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of 
God  unto  salvation.  It  has  been  subjected  to 
the  fiery  tes'S  of  the  crucible,  bui,  like  the 
burning  bush  which  Moses  saw,  it  can  not  be 
ooLsumed,  because  Jehovah  is  in  the  midst  of 
it.  The. divine  life  is  its  living  spirit.  "The 
words  that  I  speak  unto  you,"  said  Christ, 
'  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life."  The  light 
of  a  blessed  immortality  shines  from  its  pages 
upon  the  way  everlasting.  The  knowledge  of 
it  shall  one  day  fill  the  earth  as  the  waters 


Moses  and  iJic  PcntateiicJi. 


cover  the  sea.  The  glory  of  it  shall  be  told 
when  the  hosts  of  the  redeemed  "sing  the  song 
of  Moses  the  servant  of  God,  and  the  song  of 
the  Lamb." 


PHOTOMOUNT 

PAMPHLET  BINDER 

/•^ 

Monuf  actured  by 

GAYLORD  BROS.  Inc. 

Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

Stockton,  Col  If. 


BS1225.4  .J72 

Moses  and  the  Pentateuch  :  a  popular 

''[■'""fo"  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1   1012  00040  2661 


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